


Life after Death

by androidkisser



Category: NieR: Automata (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Betrayal, F/M, Mother-Son Relationship, also kind of not though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-30
Packaged: 2018-12-10 08:23:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11687787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/androidkisser/pseuds/androidkisser
Summary: “Glory to mankind.”Mostly a 21O character study.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Taking a break from Against the Cold to write a new story-focused work, because I have [things] I wish to explore!  
> I know a few of you wanted more 9S/21O stuff, and while I can't say it'll look in depth at the sexual side of things this time, it *is* an incredibly interesting dynamic they have, and it deserves exploring fully, as best as I can.
> 
> I hope you like this - please look forward to at the very least one chapter a week.  
> As always, please leave me a comment, I do so love to read your opinions, criticisms (and praise)!  
> Thank you for your time.

He hated that damn factory. He hated the smell, hated the heat, and more than anything, he hated that with 2B around, he couldn't even complain about either without being subjected to another painful lecture.

He wouldn't even have _been_ there if it wasn't for his Operator making an all-too-rare request of him. She had asked him to investigate a terminal, deep inside the factory, that the YoRHa satellites were unable to reach.

The strangest part of it all was that the request wasn't even tangentially mission related. 21O had told him of her insatiable curiosity for all things related to Earth and the Old World, and being confined to the Bunker, her scope was somewhat limited. The terminal in question supposedly held data that interested her, though he did consider how she knew it contained anything at all, if the satellites couldn't penetrate the factory walls.

Nevertheless, he was loathe to turn down any opportunity to score points with her, and so into the hated factory he ventured, hacking his way both figuratively and literally through the legions of machines.

Once the two of them finally made it to the terminal and were able to upload the data, 21O's demeanour changed entirely. She was absolutely _fascinated_ by what he saw as one of the most mundane things – a journal, left behind by a human worker, when the factory was still used to manufacture humanoid weapons.

That didn't stop her disconnecting him, as was usual, as soon as the bare minimum of pleasantries were dispensed with, much to his disappointment.

“Well, at least that's over and done with,” 9S exhaled. “She seemed happy enough, right?”

“Purpose of question unknown,” replied 153.

 

**

 

“Uh, Operator? You said you wanted to see me? In person?”

9S tentatively craned his head forwards, in an attempt to catch her attention, until eventually he was effectively blocking her vision of the screen in front of her. She sighed loudly, her typing coming to a halt.

“Yes, but I did not expect you to immediately run to the nearest transport terminal to interrupt me during my duties,” 21O said, pressing her fingers to her forehead.

“Well, I just thought there might be another reward...” No harm in asking, he thought.

“Not exactly,” stated 21O. “I simply wished to run something by you.”

“Well, alright, go ahead,” he said, a little dejected. The rewards really were nice.

“I assume that you check your personal mailbox at least once a day,” she began, turning to him.

“Yeah, I do these days, at least. How come? Did I miss something?”

“In this case, no, but that would not come as a surprise. Do you also pay attention to the daily Council of Humanity broadcasts?”

“I mean, I wouldn't say I pay attention, but I guess I hear them?” 9S said, looking puzzled. “...should I be paying attention?”

“No, the content is irrelevant. Do you also find it odd that both the broadcasts and the mail are sent at the same time, every single day?”

“I mean, I always assumed it's just some automated thing...”

“No, they are supposed to be live broadcasts,” 21O said, her expression betraying none of the curiosity that was evidently eating away at her. 9S knew that feeling all too well, except he had neither desire nor reason to hide it. He wondered what hers might be.

“Well, can't people just... schedule things?”

“That is the crux of the matter,” she went on. “As you now know, the vast majority of my downtime is spent analysing the Old World, human behaviour, subjects along those lines.”

“Right...”

“Humans are not known to be as strict with their timings as we are,” 21O said, her eyes beginning to give away the first telltale signs that she was anything _but_ distanced from the conversation. “In fact, there is an expression that allows for 'human error' to excuse them from their mistakes.”

“Okay, fine, you got me, I'm curious. Go on?”

“The broadcasts do not occur at merely the same minute, or even the top of the hour, to the second. They occur at the same nanosecond, every day, without fail.”

9S laughed a little. “You think they're selling us short? Pre-recording it all, so they can sleep more?”

“I'm not sure what to believe, 9S. Do you not find it even the slightest bit unnerving that organic beings manage such a feat?”

“I mean... yeah, it's a little off, but can't you just put it down to laziness? It's the most likely option, even the best of us want to spend a little more time in bed sometimes...”

“Perhaps you are right,” said 21O, turning back towards her terminal. “I should return to my duties.”

“Alright, okay,” he replied, a little put out that she ended their conversations in person as abruptly as their conversations over communications-link.

“9S? Thank you for listening,” she said, as he turned to walk away.

“Oh, uh – no problem. Any time. Don't work yourself too hard, alright?”

A wry smile spread across 21O's features briefly, before it gave way to pursed lips and a gentle frown once more.

 

**

 

If it was possible, he hated the desert region even more than he hated the factory. He was perched precariously on the edge of a sunken building in the ruined housing complex, pulling off his boots to empty them of sand for what felt like the eighth time that day.

“Doesn't it bother you too, 2B?”

“Not enough to make me request that we take a break every fifty steps,” 2B replied, matter-of-factly. “It'd be quicker if you ran around barefoot, at this rate.”

“Oh yeah, walking around the _housing_ complex like that would be a great idea,” he stated bitterly. “You can do the same, see if you like getting glass stuck in your –”

“Have you even located anything that your Operator would find useful?” 2B said, cutting across him.

“I mean...” he looked at the small pile of discarded human junk in front of him. A tiny shoe, a broken toy, and an accounting book that looked boring even from a distance. “Sure, let's see how it goes. 153, take a photo of this junk, send it to 21O.”

The call came through quickly, although he was somewhat expecting that. Where this sort of thing was concerned, she was ready at a moment's notice.

“This is Operator 21O to 9S. I have received your data,” she began, though she sounded somewhat preoccupied.

“Is... any of it useful at all? I mean, if it's not, I can go back in there and take another look.”

“That won't be necessary, it is more than adequate. I will analyse it later.”

“Later? Man, I thought you'd be practically drooling before I even sent it to you.”

“It's not that, 9S. It's just – well, it's...”

He sighed. “You're still thinking about those broadcasts?”

“After careful deliberation, it is not something I can ascribe to simple laziness. Based on my analysis of human speech patterns –”

He frowned, watching 2B off to one side, removing her boots to tip out the sand. Hypocrite.

“When we get back to the Bunker, I'll – wait, is this a private channel?”

“Of course it is – why do you ask?”

“Well, when we get back, I'll do some digging, see if I can find out why it's always that time, alright?” he said, lowering his voice. “There's gotta be something on it in the records.”

“That isn't necessary,” she started, before she back-pedalled a little. “That is to say, you do not have to – you should _not_ – do anything that may cause issues with Command.”

“Relax, it's me, I'll be careful,” he said, a light chuckle on his breath.

“That does not reassure me,” said 21O, quietly. “Nevertheless... thank you for not dismissing my concerns. I will be in my quarters by then, most likely, so feel free to drop in once you are finished with your duties.”

“Sure thing,” replied 9S, feeling a little smug that he could make himself useful to her. “Oh, Operator?”

“Yes, 9S?”

“Don't tell me you're actually gonna _read_ that book, it's all just numbers and –”

“Operator 21O out.”

_Oh._

 

**

 

He was sat in front of the terminal in the server room, waiting for the broadcast to begin. He wasn't sure if that would actually make a difference or not, but his reasoning had been that there'd likely be more data flowing back and forth while the thing was actually taking place. At the very least, he'd be able to use it to pinpoint where to start looking. Probably.

It felt a little odd, prying like this, but he had to admit, it was strange. And if something could bother 21O this much, for all her logical thinking, there surely had to be _something_ in it. He considered asking 153, but didn't much feel like dealing with the logic systems of a Pod over a matter like this.

A loud, booming voice echoed throughout the server room.

“ _ **The Council of Humanity has a message for our brave androids fighting on the surface,**_ ” it began.

_That's my cue,_ thought 9S, standing up quickly and raising his arms to begin hacking into the Bunker's systems.

As he entered hacking space, the message continued to resonate through the audio processors in his physical body. He could simply disable those, but it seemed somewhat pertinent to pay attention to the speech patterns. He certainly wasn't as well-versed as 21O as far as analysing things like that went, but he could at least offer her an opinion on it.

“ _ **It has been several millennia since the aliens – and their advance force, the machine lifeforms – attacked us.**_ ”

_Yeah, yeah, same old blabber,_ he thought, dismissing the words themselves. They were monotone – perhaps being delivered by someone in charge. Definitely a male. Probably old. He didn't have a whole lot of experience with that, but he could at least extrapolate from the tone.

He fished around a little more, following the data upstream to where it was being broadcast from. There were a few firewalls in his way, which confused him slightly, but perhaps _some_ security was prudent. It would probably have confused him even more, had they simply left everything open to all and sundry.

“ _ **Millennia since mankind was forced to evacuate to the surface of the moon.**_ ”

_Man, can I even follow a data stream to the moon?_ His mind filled with questions, as he continued to fight his way through the Bunker's defenses, passing by other nodes that no doubt held the answers to other questions he had. He wasn't there for those, though, and he didn't want to attract any undue attention.

“ _ **But thanks to your continued struggle, we have been able to survive.**_ ”

_Gotcha_ , he thought, as he honed in on the origin of the signal. All he'd have to do was to dive in just a little deeper, and then he'd have their answer. Sending a simple data package to the origin would tell him whether the signal was truly live or not, and then at least he'd have the answer to _one_ of their questions. 'Their' questions. 'Their' answer. He couldn't help but snicker. He'd really gotten himself invested.

“ _ **You, our android soldiers, are the last hope of humanity.**_ ”

He sent his useless data to the server, and got an instant response. That was the first thing that set his nerves on edge. It _shouldn't_ be instant. Looking back at the packet of data, he began to sort through the response. According to this, he had received the response from the Bunker server itself.

_That can't be right_ , he thought. _I must've screwed up._

He sent it again, and found the same results in the data. A third time, he sent it off, only to once more be greeted with the same answer.

_I guess it really was pre-recorded._

But no, if that were the case, pre-recorded or not, surely it would still _originate_ from the moon server? Why would they go to the trouble of sending the files themselves to the Bunker, just to play them anyway?

He was equal parts curious, and a little apprehensive. So 21O _did_ pick up on something. He made a mental note to never doubt her again, and stored it at the forefront of his logic center.

Well, at least he was in the right area to get more answers. The firewalls here were a little more aggressive in their defence, but it wasn't a problem for him. He was built for this, after all, and in terms of raw difficulty of a hack, this didn't even rank.

“ _ **We look forward to your continued success in combat.**_ ”

_Jeez, we get it. Go back to sleep, old man._

He breezed his way through the admittedly weak security, wondering how he could bring up how lacking it was without giving away the reason he knew such a thing, then decided it was best left alone. Not his problem.

C-class data – no good, and besides, he had access to that already. Everything up to B-class documents were available to him, but he knew that accessing them in this raw form was _definitely_ against protocol.

He took a cursory glance through the A-class documents pertaining to the moon server, and found... nothing of note. Shipments of water, shipments of – empty crates? That was weird. Who sent empty crates? They didn't have enough of those up there? Why was this even classified information?

Pushing on, he felt he _had_ to know more, now. There was something that simply didn't sit right with him. S-class data, what he now considered his goal, was empty entirely, save for one file. Only the Commander herself had clearance to view it.

He hesitated for a moment. If they knew he was doing this, he'd still be relatively safe, at this point; it wasn't unheard of for a Scanner to try to look up things they shouldn't – though usually, it was their Operator's personal data they were attempting to get at. He had almost tried the same thing after 11S told him he'd hit the jackpot with his own, but a sense of guilt had stopped him before he'd even begun to think about the logistics. 21O had never looked into his own personal data – he knew, he'd checked – even though she was well within her means to, and so he chose to respect her own privacy.

“ _ **Glory to mankind.**_ ”

He took a deep breath, before plunging in. Strangely enough, there were no defenses here. Perhaps YoRHa command simply assumed nobody would have the audacity to attempt to breach this area, or perhaps they never thought anyone would care about this particular branch of data.

Either way, it was his for the taking.

His throat tightened as he browsed the documents therein. The words flashed in front of him in quick succession, but remained burned into his vision long afterwards.

_“Council of Humanity Development Department. Project YoRHa. Backdoor.”_ And then came some more horrifying revelations. He felt nauseous. “ _Human Extinction. Gestalt. Loss of Android Morale. Lunar Server.”_

As he read on, it only got worse. There was an addendum, placed at the end of the document.

_“Should any YoRHa personnel speak of, or otherwise display knowledge of the data contained within this document, they are to be apprehended and brought to Command for a full memory wipe and reset to default personality settings. In the case of a unit refusing to comply, it is permissible to destroy the unit.”_

He was entirely certain that he would have thrown up, if he were able to. Fear took his mind and coursed through his circuitry. Yet underneath that, somehow, there was something that he needed to know. If he was already in this deep, he _had_ to know.

His own unit log was neither hard to find, nor well protected. A simple file that contained a list of every scheduled maintenance, issues that had cropped up with him from time to time, and public conversation logs was all that resided within the folder. What was not immediately obvious, however, was that there were sub-folders within that folder, that _were_ well protected – the records of his 'deaths', and subsequent rebuildings or memory restorations.

The only reason he had to go looking here was a suspicion, an inkling. A suspicion about _himself_. If he had been overwhelmed with curiosity now, there was a chance – a small chance, he thought – that he had seen this before. Surely, if he had, someone would have warned him to keep away this time, told him not to –

Memory wipe. Default personality settings. He'd never have known, and they'd have no reason to tell him about it next time. _Next time._ That sounded so cold. As if it somehow didn't matter if he had 3 years' worth of memories, or 3 hours.

He wished that he had never looked, once he gained access to those logs. He truly did.

 

**

 

9S hammered at the entrance to 21O's quarters, to no avail. She wasn't back yet, after all. He'd have to go get her. This couldn't wait.

He practically sprinted to the Command room, shoving his way past what he thought might have been 6O. He definitely didn't want to see her, of all people, right now. He didn't want to see _anything_ that could bring the image of 2B to his mind.

_No, not 2B,_ he thought. _2E._

The doors opened painfully slowly by his current standards, though in reality, they took less than half a second between them.

He bounded over the dividing wall next to the elevator, drawing the ire of at least four of the other Operators as he stomped over to the edge of the platform, to where 21O's work station was located.

“You have to come with me,” he said, barely able to push the words out. His breathing was ragged; he looked terrified.

21O didn't look up from her work, at first. “9S, you can see I'm clearly in the middle of –”

_“Now,”_ he urged, almost pleading with her with his eyes, now full of tears. “It can't wait. It can't.”

She turned to him, rapidly reading his expression. She had never seen that distraught look on his face before, not in their entire three years of working together, and it pulled at something deep within the pit of her abdomen. It pulled, and pulled, until something inside her gave.

“I understand,” she whispered, standing up to take his hand. She led him away, up the stairs, through the corridor, and back to her room, disregarding the glances from the other Operators.

Despite everything, right now, he was glad. He was glad she had left her station for him. He was glad he wouldn't be alone. The door closed before 153 could float in behind them. Not that he noticed.

They sat on the edge of her bed. He was shaking; one of her hands rested on his upper back, between his shoulder blades, rubbing small, comforting circles, and the other continued to tightly keep hold of his left.

He wished he could stay in silence forever, as if it would somehow make it just _go away_ if he never spoke of it again, to anyone. How he wished that were so, as he slowly began to recount what he had learned in that room to her.

“Stop telling me about that part,” 21O interrupted at one point, her own voice quivering. “I don't care about the humans.”

“I – I just thought – that's what we went in for, so I... I thought you'd want to know...”

“What we went in for and what we came out with are two entirely different things,” she whispered in response. “You're positive it's her?”

“Y-yeah,” he said, drawing in a shuddering breath.

“There is always the chance you made it out of there without bringing attention to yourself,” 21O began, tentatively, before she heard the sobbing. It was apparent that baseless optimism was not going to be able to help, here.

“I don't – I don't want – to die,” he wept, as she brought his head to her chest and held it there. To hell with whatever cold, calculated image of herself she was cultivating. He _needed_ her.

“I won't let that happen,” she breathed. “It'll be alright.”

“It's not like – you – you can't _stop_ her, if she gets that order,” he whimpered, the tears drying up for now, the last couple leaving long rivulets on his cheeks. She drew him tighter still. “I know how it works, now. It's not like I can say no to the missions, and what am I supposed to do? Kill her, before she kills me?”

He felt nauseous all over again, saying that word. _Kill._ Before, it was simply a mission directive. Kill the machines. Kill Adam, kill Eve. It meant nothing to him. It was his purpose, after all.

“No, that... that isn't an option. As distasteful as it is, E-types are an officially sanctioned way of – of dealing with problems,” she said, the words leaving a disgusting after-taste in her mouth.

“Dealing with _problems_ that get in the way of their little lie, right?” 9S asked, his voice shifting through both raw fury and intense terror. It was rhetorical, of course, and there would be no answer, but he couldn't help voicing it.

“You'll... have to let it happen,” 21O said, feeling the ache in her stomach again.

9S coiled back almost immediately. “You're joking, right? I'll forget _everything_ , I'll forget you, I –”

He choked on his own words again, as the reality of the situation kicked in. He'd forgotten her before.

“Did you know?” he asked, voice trembling again.

“I didn't,” she replied. “Though... I suspected. I did question 2B, once. You were forgetting to upload your data more often than not, and nobody is that dense.”

“She lied to your face, didn't she?”

“I assume so,” 21O replied, gently. He leaned back into her once more, the sense of relief that she wasn't in on it washing over him. “There were times that I manually pulled your self-consciousness data through to the Bunker myself, and yet the next day, you...” she trailed off.

“So assuming I can just... let it happen, what then? I'm – I'm going to have to forget everything again, aren't I?”

“No,” she said, calmly and resolutely. The simple, single syllable somehow put him at ease. “There is something we can do.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a quick update, because I want to get to the meat of the story quicker, and I'm neither a fan of being kept in suspense or keeping others in suspense.  
> I'm excited to post the next chapter, but there may be a slightly larger gap between this chapter and that, because it's something I want to get as good as I possibly can. 
> 
> *Please*, leave a comment as usual. I love to read your thoughts.

“No way, they'll figure it out,” 9S said, shaking his head frantically from side to side. “There's no way they won't know.”

“It is the only real choice we have,” said 21O, her voice tinged with disdain. “A partial back-up of your self-consciousness data is the only –”

“Partial?”

“The memory chips are simply not designed to store that much data,” she explained, fighting the urge to grind her teeth. It was an impossible situation. “However, if you strip away the trivial, and keep only the relevant and meaningful, you should be able to fit the vast majority of your memories on to it.”

9S sighed. He knew she was right. He knew that she was putting her own life on the line, too. Circumventing top-level YoRHa protocol would _not_ be overlooked, if she was ever found out.

“You... don't have to help with this, you know,” he mumbled. “It's not like you asked me to do this, you even told me I _shouldn't_ , so I...”

“I think we have somewhat... larger problems to worry about,” replied 21O, slowly.

“Yeah, once we deal with the little formality of my dying, right?”

“Perhaps, in this case, it is a small mercy that you won't remember it,” she whispered. “I don't think that would be healthy for your state of mind, once you...”

He couldn't help but let out a bitter laugh at that, though it was devoid of any of the usual emotion that came with laughter. “I guess you're right. What's that human saying you were telling me about? 'Ignorance is bliss'?”

“Correct,” 21O said, the corners of her lips curling into the faint imitation of a smile.

“Well, let's get on with it,” he sighed. “I'd rather not leave anything to chance, and the sooner the better.”

“Understood,” she breathed, reaching over and pulling out the chip from one of the drawers on her desk. She often used them when her mind felt too busy, or to archive information for her own later use.

He reached out to take it from her, but she shook her head.

“Turn around,” she said, firmly, but gently. He obliged without a single word of complaint, and she was almost sorry that he didn't put up a fight. It was unpleasant to see him so... beaten.

She combed the hair at the base of his neck away from the panel of artificial skin, covering the socket that held the data chips – the ones that were not considered essential on creation. Her fingertips lightly skimmed the skin there, skating across the surface until she found a small groove she could pull up with her nail. She felt him shiver a little beneath her touch, which brought back that strange feeling in the pit of her stomach – except it felt more like a dampened version of how the combat units described the feeling of their 'battle high' to her, rather than the same intense ache from before.

She dismissed it quickly as nerves, as she slotted the chip into an empty holding.

“You should be able to use it now,” 21O said. “Just remember, unless you find that there is additional space...”

“Yeah, the important stuff first, I know. Thanks,” he added, somewhat sheepishly, as he closed his eyes to focus on his task.

 _Only one affirmation,_ she noted. She hoped that if it was a new habit, it found its way on to the chip.

“Alright,” he said, after what felt like far longer than the ten or so minutes that had actually passed, “I think it's as good as it's gonna get.”

He reached back behind his head, and pulled it out, before smoothing over the skin there once more. 21O held her hand out, somewhat expectantly, and 9S looked puzzled for a second, before offering a resigned nod.

“Don't lose it,” he said with a soft exhale, placing it in the palm of her hand. “Please.”

“I have no intentions of losing it,” came the reply, as she brushed her own hair away from the nape of her neck.

“Wait, you're gonna – but that's – well, I guess it's safe there, but... don't look at that stuff, okay? There's nothing _bad_ , but it's just...”

“Have I ever pried into your personal data before?”

“No, but –”

“Then please do not assume that I would begin now,” she said, a little hurt that the thought would even cross his mind. “You have my word.”

“Alright, sorry,” he muttered. “I'm... just trying to keep it together until we can get back to this point, whenever that is.”

“You are scheduled for deployment later today,” said 21O, almost wishing they had more time to think things through. “Though... I am afraid that even if her order is given today, it may be several days before I'm able to bring you up to speed again, so to speak.”

She was right. Maintenance for a full reset wasn't a simple task, unlike merely transferring a consciousness.

“I know,” he said, sullenly.

“I realise that this is entirely up to you, but if I may, I have a suggestion, for when the time does come.”

“No, go ahead, anything that might make it easier...”

“I cannot promise that, but... do not speak to her, even if she gives you the chance. If she should stay her blade, or if it is... unclean, do not open your mouth.”

“I won't,” he said, his voice shaking. “I won't. She won't get anything from me.”

She shook her head.

“It isn't just a matter of pride, though I do understand,” 21O said, feeling a tightness in her chest. “I worry that you might give something away, simply through your intonation, or anything similar. She is... frightfully observant.”

“I know,” he said, again, before he looked right at her. “Does it hurt?”

“I... wouldn't know,” 21O said, honestly. She almost wished she did, just so she could tell him exactly what to do to minimise the pain, or hurry along the process.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“You have nothing to apologise for, 9S,” she replied, speaking in hushed tones herself. “Though you should... likely prepare for the mission. I will be required at my post, soon enough.”

“Can I ask you a favour?”

“Of course,” 21O said, hastily.

“Will you be... understanding with me, when I'm... when I get back? It's – it kinda hurts when you're so...” he said, his expression sinking. His earliest memories of interacting with 21O were anything but pleasant, mostly down to either his own inability to shut up, or his deliberate attempts at annoying her. “It's selfish, I know, and I know I'm gonna be a pain before I know how you work, and...”

 _It bothers him that much?_ It made sense, she supposed, given his nature, but even so...

“It is the least I can do,” she replied, calmly. “Though during this mission, I... I will be keeping my contact to the barest minimum.”

“It's kinda weird,” he said, looking up at her again. “That I won't remember this part of the conversation, even after I'm – well, 'back'...”

“It is, a little,” she whispered. She knew that they would have to part all too soon, and yet... she didn't want to send him off to _her_. To send him off to die, though she knew it would only be for a time.

“I better get going, then,” he stated, attempting to sound as resolute as possible. He made to stand up, before he felt a hand at his wrist, pulling him back down into a sitting position.

“9S,” whispered 21O, leaning over, and kissing him softly on the forehead. Her own eyes were brimming with tears.

“Kinda mean to do that when you know I won't remember it,” he said, attempting a weak smile for her.

“Perhaps I'm being selfish, too,” she said, letting go of his wrist.

She only let the first tears fall when the door was safely closed behind him.

 

**

 

She had been curled up on her bed since being dismissed from duty, earlier on. After all, there was no real need for an Operator to be at their work station if there was no partner unit to supervise.

Seeing his vitals go dark was almost too much, this time. Knowing _exactly_ the reason why was enough for her to almost feel the blade pierce her own body.

21O turned over on to her other side, staring intensely at the spot that he had been sat, mere hours ago. It was a horrifying thought, that right now, there _was_ no 9S.

Her ruminating was interrupted by a loud, reverberating knock at her door, which let her know that it was 6O. She was the only person that knocked, instead of using the access panel.

“It's open,” said 21O, speaking in monotone. Truthfully, she didn't especially want to see anyone right now, but she knew that the other girl would only have her best interests at heart, and so she was loathe to send her away without at least hearing her out.

“Hey,” 6O said, inching her way over to the bed, before sitting down right where he had been.

“Don't sit – never mind,” 21O said, turning over on to her back again.

“I'm sorry about what happened,” mumbled 6O, knotting her fingers together and looking down at her knees.

“It's fine,” 21O muttered, more to reassure herself than 6O.

“You don't _look_ fine,” the other girl said. “2B said she tried her best – she did everything she could, but the virus was too far along, and he couldn't back up...”

21O could have wrung whatever life may have existed inside of it right out of her pillow. How _dare_ she. How dare she lie to 6O. How dare she pretend that nothing was amiss.

“I see,” she said, finally, through gritted teeth. She couldn't risk saying more, or her ire would be too obvious.

“Um, she also asked me, to ask you, um...”

“Yes?”

“She wanted me to ask you if he mentioned anything that was wrong, like before the mission. She says it's important to know for the next time they work together... she thinks he's more susceptible to the virus if he's hacking when his mind is elsewhere.”

Was there no limit to how far she would go? 21O turned her head, and her face twisted with disgust. Why was that important, anyway? Was she fishing to see how long he had known, so she could better recognise the signs that came before he –

“No,” 21O said, flatly, realising she had been silent for too long. “He is usually more than vocal when something is bothering him.”

“I figured as much,” said 6O thoughtfully. “If he was gonna tell anyone, I think he'd definitely tell you.”

As much as she felt that 6O deserved the truth, she had no intention of burdening her with any of this mess before she had discussed everything with 9S, and attempted to make some sense of it all.

“Perhaps,” she muttered, though she knew 6O was probably right.

“Don't worry,” said 6O quietly. “He'll be back before you know it.”

“Will _he_ be back, though? Don't you think we are shaped into who we are by our experiences? Our memories?”

“Huh? Where's that coming from?”

“I... never mind,” she said, trailing off and cursing herself for a moment of weakness. “I simply meant that I find it difficult to go through the motions every time.”

“Mm... I can imagine. Well, at least he has you and 2B to put him on the right path if it ever happens. That's a positive, right?”

Venom practically dripped from her teeth as she spoke. “Yes, I suppose you are correct.”

“Well, I'm gonna get back to work, I just wanted to see how you were doing while I had a break – if you need anything, lemme know, okay?”

“I'll keep it in mind,” she said, nodding, as 6O smiled and turned to walk away.

She held no ill feeling whatsoever towards 6O, and so she felt sickened with herself that she had been even more distant and aloof towards her than usual. She managed to excuse it by reminding herself of the current circumstances, but it still sat uncomfortably with her – not only that, despite her warning 9S, she had almost let her emotions slip in the heat of a moment to someone she considered a friend.

She wouldn't let it happen again.

 

**

 

“May I speak with you for a moment?”

It took all of 21O's carefully gathered restraint to not slam her fists into the desk in front of her at the sound of the only voice on the Bunker that managed to sound more sickeningly distant than hers.

“What is it, 2B?” came the steely reply. She didn't look up from her work station, though she supposed 2B was used to seeing that.

“I simply wished to ask if you would be open to sharing 9S's combat data freely with 6O and myself,” she said.

21O had an internal battle to resist the shudder that threatened to wrack her body when she spoke his name.

“Is it necessary?”

“It would be helpful.”

“Ask his pod,” 21O suggested, helpfully. “I am sure it has less of a workload than I do, and very likely more free time.”

“If it isn't possible, then it's fine,” replied 2B, unfazed. “I said it would be helpful, nothing more.”

21O closed her eyes for a moment, while 2B looked around the room. She couldn't be this cold. It was far too obvious.

“No, it is possible. I am simply run off my feet today, and that may not be the case when you undertake your next mission. I will do my best to provide it where possible.”

It was a lie. She had been doing nothing at all, and very likely would do nothing for the rest of the day; however, luckily, she had absolutely no qualms over lying to her.

“Thank you,” said 2B, sounding anything but thankful. 21O could only wonder what she wished to analyse it for. She strongly doubted that it had been 6O's idea. Perhaps 9S had put up a fight. A part of her hoped he had. “There is one more thing.”

21O braced, praying the next question was _not_ going to be an intrusive one. She didn't think she could handle it, right now.

“Do you know what 6O's favourite flowe–”

“Desert rose,” she said quickly, eager to end this conversation. 9S was lying _,_ motionless in maintenance, forcefully being reset to his default personality data, and here she was, courting 6O? It sickened her. Not because she didn't want 6O to be happy, but because it was _her_. Foul. Disgusting. Wrong. It was as if it had never happened, in 2B's eyes. She wished he was back already. She had never realised how much she missed his inane chatter, until now.

Even 2B seemed taken aback at the bluntness of her response, yet she expressed her thanks all the same, before turning on her heel and walking to the opposite side of the platform to converse with 6O.

21O continued to do her utmost to ignore the feeling of her insides collapsing in on themselves as she watched 6O happily talk, giggle and playfully bat at her arm from across the divide.

 _One more day,_ she thought, balling her hands into tightly clenched fists. _Just one more day._

 

**

 

She smoothed the hair away from his forehead, as she kept a close eye on his restart timer. Requesting to be the one who performed his initial maintenance may have been out of character, and it had certainly raised a few eyebrows, but she was past caring. She refused to let him wander around, clueless, for any longer than was absolutely necessary, but it wasn't just a matter of morality. She missed him. They had only just begun to warm up to each other again, something they hadn't managed in almost two years, and she wasn't about to let that go so easily this time.

 _98%_.

Soon, he'd wake up, and question why she was there. He'd ask why she wasn't at her desk, he'd suggest that surely, she had more important places to be. How wrong he would be, if those were to be his first thoughts.

9S began to stir softly in front of her, and her pulse rate rose to alarming heights. Maybe he'd react badly to the invasion of privacy; after all, she had never been in his room before, let alone sat on his bed, or –

“Oh, Operator? What're you doing here?”

She smiled, remembering her promise, as she watched him stretch his arms out in front of him. Her pent-up anger from the previous days dissipated almost instantly into the air in front of her, seeing him _alive_ again.

“I'm here to take care of your maintenance.” She spoke softly, as if to coax a terrified animal from its hiding spot. The memory chip sat tightly and safely in her palm.

“Uh – sure, okay. I mean, you don't usually...”

“Well, let us say that this isn't a 'usual' week,” 21O said. She didn't have to fake the smiles for him, after all. Hearing his voice again was doing the job well enough on its own.

“Man, how long have I been out? I don't even remember what went wrong – solo mission, right?”

“Not exactly,” she said, moving herself up the side of the bed, closer to him.

“Uh, sorry, my memory's kinda fuzzy... mind filling me in?”

“Do you trust me, 9S?”

The awkward segue caught him by surprise, but soon after, he started to giggle, before it turned into a peal of laughter.

“What kind of a stupid question is that? Of course I trust you,” he said, still laughing.

The answer washed over her at first, before it began to sink in a few moments afterward. Even now, before he had gotten to know her _properly_ , he trusted her. She hadn't expected his answer to have this much of an effect on her. All she had wanted was for him to –

“Turn over, please.”

“Hey, you're not gonna pinch me or do anything weird when I can't see you, are you?”

His innocence, his naïveté, was a thing to be treasured. She almost felt bad that she'd be taking it away in a matter of minutes, but then she reminded herself that it simply wouldn't be acceptable to have it be any other way.

For a brief moment, she allowed herself to drift into a fantasy world, wherein she could take him away, start from an almost blank slate. He would have no unpleasant memories of her icy cold exterior, they could forge new ones together, ones where he would feel safe, warm, and –

“Operator? Were you just messing with me?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head, partly to reinforce her point, and partly to attempt to shake those thoughts out of her head. Her fingers gingerly brushed over his neck, to part his hair once more, only this time, he didn't shiver. That was odd.

“Oh, they forgot a chip? That's weird, they're usually on top of things down there.”

“I'll need you to perform a soft reboot,” whispered 21O, slotting the chip into its rightful place.

“Sure thing, it won't take long,” he said, turning onto his back once more, a gentle smile still painted on his face. 21O hoped that she'd see that again sometime soon. “We 9S models are the best around, y'know.”

“Oh, I don't doubt it,” she said, averting her gaze as he restarted his systems. For some reason, she didn't feel as if she should watch.

“Shit,” said a voice from her left. “I wish I didn't remember just saying that. That's... man, that's beyond embarrassing. Do I say that every time?”

“Welcome back,” she said, almost overwhelmed, as he sat back up. She was glad that he hadn't forgotten to back up his sense of humour, even though there was once a long phase where almost every single word that left his mouth had irritated her. “Almost every time.”

“Thank you,” he said, sheepishly, not meeting her eyes, and – was he blushing?

“For what?”

“You _know_ what.”

“Do you remember everything you wanted to?”

“I think so, yeah... there's some weird gaps where I didn't save – well, I dunno what, but whatever it was, I guess I didn't think it was important.”

“I see,” she replied. “I'm glad.”

“I know we have... a lot to talk about, but did anything happen while I was... y'know,” he said, following a recent trend of trailing off.

“Only that I found it difficult to maintain my composure around her,” 21O said, bitterly. “Though one thing I gleaned from our 'talks', is that I suspect that you may have put up quite the fight.”

“Guess we'll never know,” he said, shrugging. “You didn't let her get to you, did you?”

“I don't think so, though... as I said, it was difficult.”

“Yeah, I can imagine...”

“I would say that the hard part is over, but you have an act to keep up now, you realise,” 21O said, lowering her voice, to be prudent.

“Don't remind me,” he spat. “I'm gonna have to suck up to her or she's gonna know something's up.”

“There is also the matter of... the _other_ information that you uncovered.”

“Yeah,” 9S said, flatly. “I think I need to get into at least _some_ kind of a routine – or whatever you'd even call it – again here before I can even think of taking that one apart, though...”

“Agreed,” said 21O softly, edging closer before she spoke again. “It was... lonely, without your company.”

Rather than make a joke, as she expected, he surprised her.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered. “I'll try not to go anywhere again.”

She inhaled sharply against her will, his words striking a chord deep within her.

“Really,” he went on, “it's stupid, because, well, I wasn't even here, not really... but I get the feeling I missed you too.”

“I... see,” 21O choked out.

“Still feels weird, though,” he said, seemingly unaware of the effect his words had had on her. “Like I just hijacked my own body.”

“You did, technically.”

“I guess you're right,” he said with a frown. “I'm still kinda antsy, though... I think there's some leftover emotions from what I was feeling before it – yeah.”

“So long as everyone sees you playing your role, you should not have anything to worry about,” she said, though she lacked the confidence to deliver the words with any kind of certainty. “Everything will be fine.”

It was evidently enough to assuage his present worries for now, as he flipped over on to his stomach, exhaling heavily.

“What a total god damn mess this is,” he said, sighing. As she looked over at him again, she noticed the flap of skin on his neck was still out of place.

“Let me fix this,” said 21O, reaching across. As her fingers grazed over that same patch of skin, she felt him freeze in place briefly, and then raise his neck to meet her hand. She withdrew almost immediately, as a matter of reflex.

“Sorry,” he said, almost instantaneously. “Your hands are just... they're warm, so I... sorry.”

She was far too busy deciphering why exactly he had reacted now, and not before, to reply to him right away. At least she was, until her mind grasped it with both of those warm hands. Before she had restored his memories, even though he trusted her, he didn't _know_ her – and so he had had no reason to react the way he was currently, back then. Now, though, he was well acquainted with more aspects of her than anyone else in her life could hope to be. The ramifications of this swarmed her mind, taking it hostage from any other thought patterns for a time.

“You aren't mad at me, are you?”

His nervous voice pulled her back into reality.

“No, I'm not mad,” she breathed, placing her hand on his neck once more and smoothing the skin over. She continued to stroke the area in soft circles, sometimes allowing her hand to slip into the outer reaches of his hair, scratching at his scalp tenderly. He seemed to relax – no, it was more – he practically melted into her, his head rising slightly to meet her touch.

He sighed, as her index finger found its way to a sensitive spot almost directly behind his ear. She didn't know it, but at that moment, he felt as if he had no worries at all. As if none of this had ever happened. As if he hadn't been _dead_ for the past four days.

“You don't have to stay, if you have places to be, you know,” he murmured quietly, half into his pillow. “I'll be alright now.”

“I think my place should be here, for now,” she replied back, in an equally mumbled way.

“I'm... glad you said that,” he said, turning his head to face her, as her fingertips continued to caress his worries away. “Really glad.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I rarely talk myself up, but I'm extremely proud of how well this chapter turned out. I hope I explored some important themes (at least, they're important to me, since 21O/9S is my favourite pairing), and I hope I did the characters justice for you, too.
> 
> There are one, perhaps two chapters left to go with this one, so stick with me!
> 
> I'd really appreciate comments on this one, even if you wouldn't normally leave one! I'm selfish, I know. <3  
> Thank you for reading!

“Hey, you better get moving,” said 9S softly, attempting to nudge her out of her sojourn in rest mode. “I'm pretty sure you're gonna be needed soon.”

21O stirred a little, a soft sound escaping her lips that was quite unlike anything 9S had ever heard her make before.

“Hey, c'mon now, you've gotta go to your room, get your stuff together... not to mention your hair's a total mess.”

After her eyes flickered open to look at him, the very first expression that came to her eyes was a smile, which surprised even her.

“It is not a mess,” 21O said, arching her back and stretching her arms out above her head. “But yes, you are correct, I should leave in a while.”

“You should – uh, well, I should check there's no one outside before you go,” he said, sheepishly. “I mean, you wouldn't stay here all night if I had just – I mean, I don't _know_ if you would or not, I'm not... wait, _have_ you ever stayed here before?”

“Who can say,” replied 21O airily. “I agree, though. We do not want to attract any suspicion, at this point.”

“Did you sleep like that all night? It looked uncomfortable...”

“It was unintentional,” she said. “I simply underestimated just how long I had been awake.”

“Oh, so you would've joined me if you'd had a bit more time to think about it?”

“I would not have – that is to say, you should not – 9S, that is hardly...”

“Relax, I'm just kidding,” he said, smiling softly. “Mostly, anyway. I'm grateful you stayed and all, but...”

“But what?”

“Nah, it's not the time,” said 9S, taking his turn to sit up and stretch out. “This isn't gonna be an easy day, y'know? I don't wanna make it any more difficult. Man, this body feels different somehow...”

Though 21O's every thought process was aligned with the thought of asking him just what that 'but' was leading to, she resisted the urge to push further. He was right; it wouldn't be an easy day.

“You do understand that our... work relationship cannot be this way, don't you?”

“Yeah, I know,” he said, the smile fading from his face briefly, before it reappeared again. “It's fine, so long as you're like this when it's just us.”

Her cheeks turned a little pink, but either he didn't notice, or chose not to comment.

“Do you feel confident about your first mission with her?”

“I mean...” 9S paused for a moment. “Yeah, I think I can handle it. Well, not like I have a choice, but...”

She could sense that he still hadn't really come to terms with the whole thing, but she was unsure of how to broach the subject with him.

“9S...”

“Yeah?”

“No, never mind.”

“C'mon, don't be like that... just tell me,” he said, imploring her with his eyes.

“Do you believe that she simply does it because she is told to do so, or do you think there is... something more to it?” 21O asked, finally.

“What more to it could there be? Even if she doesn't want to do it, she still does,” he spat, his face suddenly losing its softness. “I don't _want_ to hate her, I don't... but she can't just keep doing this to me, like I – no, like _everyone_ doesn't deserve to know the god-damn truth!”

“Mm,” was all she had in the way of response, in the end.

“Sorry,” he muttered, the fit of anger subsiding. “Just hasn't really sunk in yet.”

“I understand, and no, I'm sorry for asking,” she said, her well-spoken manner drifting sideways a little. “I just – I just want to be help you, 9S. I want to be here for you.”

“But you are here for me,” he replied, a little bemused. “Unless we can dream now, I'm pretty sure you were here for me all night, too.”

“That's not what I meant,” she mumbled. “I wish I...”

“What is it?” he asked, gently. He reached out towards her head, and tentatively cupped her cheek in his palm when she didn't pull away. “You can tell me anything, okay?”

“I'm being selfish again,” she said, her voice quivering a little. He blinked once or twice, not understanding what she meant. She read his expression; of _course_ he didn't remember. “I haven't quite... given every memory back yet.”

“Huh? What do you –”

She leaned forwards, his hand following her, almost as if it were glued to her cheek, and placed her lips on her forehead, as she had before; she lingered a little longer than she had then, but everything else was the same.

“Wait, when did you...”

“Just afterwards,” she whispered, her face almost too close to his. Noticing this, she went to pull back, but his hand moved, and his fingers curled lightly around the back of her neck.

His mouth was on hers before she could protest, and for a moment, she melted into it, thankful that they no longer had need for words. His lips were soft – softer than she could have imagined, had she ever chosen to imagine how soft his lips were. He was tender, ever so tender, the rhythm of his mouth opening and closing to meet hers a slow one, taking his time with every deliberate movement.

His eyes opened at the same time as hers, and they caught each others' gaze for a moment, as they parted briefly to catch their breath. As he made to resume their dance, closing his eyes once more, he felt the warm skin of her neck leave his hand, and a draft of air pass over his lips, as she stood up, her fingertips covering her own mouth.

“I – I have to go,” she stuttered, taking small, backwards steps away from him.

“No, I'm sorry – I didn't –” he pleaded. “Please, I'm sorry, I just...”

“Please be careful today,” she managed to say, before she broke into a series of quicker steps and left his room before the door had even fully opened.

“Shit,” he said, turning over and pushing his face into his pillow. The issue of dealing with 2B suddenly felt very small, compared to this.

 

**

 

21O sighed heavily, leaning against her door as it closed behind her.

They had managed to make it through the first day without incident, so far as 2B or Command was concerned. Despite everything, he had managed to keep up the appearance of being a fresh-off-the-line, innocent 9S, though she could tell that his voice was straining at times.

She felt like tearing her own legs clean off for running away from him like that. As if he didn't already have enough to deal with; not that it would help with the dilemna she now faced.

He had misread her intentions – or had he? Had she _not_ kissed him back?

Her fist slammed into the door, for all the good it would do. Her mind drifted to the images of the tiny shoe, and of the broken toy that he had sent to her what felt like decades ago. A family. That was what she had wanted, wasn't it?

 _Had_ wanted? _Was?_ Did she not still want that?

A gloved finger rose to her lips. It felt nothing like his own, nowhere near as soft, nor tactile, nor tender, and the taste was –

“Damn it,” she said, unintentionally out loud. He always had a way of making things difficult. Except this was more than difficult. Were the two things mutually exclusive? Could she not take up that role, and still give him what he wanted?

 _No,_ she thought, managing to internalise her speech this time. It was one or the other. She knew that. It was entirely on her to bring it up with him, but she had never dreamed to mention it to him, in all their time together – and if she did, would he no longer feel those things he so clearly felt for her? The thought of that upset her more than she thought it would.

Either way, it would have to be discussed. He had had enough things kept from him.

Lost in her thoughts, she had managed to ignore two soft beeps from the panel on her right. Someone was requesting access.

The gentle sound of heels outside as the visitor paced back and forth one or two steps at a time very likely confirmed her suspicions that it was 2B. Though she hadn't expected her to be back so soon, her pulse raced at the thought that 9S would also already be either already here or en route.

“Hello,” said 2B, as 21O pushed the confirm command and the door slid open.

“Yes, good evening,” replied 21O, moving to the side to allow her inside. Being in such close proximity to her made her blood boil. Reluctantly, she did her best to push all thoughts of 9S to the back of her mind, to deal with the brand new set of problems that she now faced.

“You haven't been sending me any of the combat data that I requested, so I simply thought that I'd check in with you,” said 2B, peering around the room.

21O had only opened the door to her so as not to raise suspicions, after all of the hard work that had gone into making today run smoothly. After all, a 21O without this knowledge would have no reason to decline. That irritated her even more; she and 2B had been on fairly close terms, over the years.

“I merely said that if I had time, that I would offer what I could,” she stated, placing her veil on the desk at the window. “Since I have not had time, it would be rather curious if you _had_ received the combat data you requested.”

“That's odd,” said 2B, taking a few short steps further inside her quarters, as the door slid shut behind her. “6O says you've had more downtime than ever, recently.”

“Odd indeed,” replied 21O, idly. “It could be something to do with the fact that I have not had a Scanner to supervise for the past few days.”

“If you have an issue with me, I'd prefer if you'd come out and say it.” 2B spoke bluntly, her voice lower than usual.

“Perhaps we should continue this conversation another time,” the Operator said, “when I am enjoying some of the boundless free time you've been hearing so much about.”

“Right now works just fine,” said 2B, barely concealing the faintest hint of annoyance, still advancing towards 21O, slowly.

“I've no doubt that it does,” she hissed. “If you knew something was off with me for this long, why hold it in? Is that a force of habit by now?”

She heard a small, sharp intake of breath behind her. Evidently, 2B had been unaware of _what_ exactly was 'off'.

“And just what do you mean by that?”

“I think you know exactly what I mean,” 21O said, somewhat ironically through gritted teeth, as she was unable to bite back her fury any longer.

She heard 2B turn on her heel and make to walk away, no doubt to sprint back to the Commander, but she was on her feet already – she reached out, grabbing a hold of 2B's shoulder through the fabric and twisting her around violently.

“At least have the spine to confront me properly,” hissed 21O. “Or do you have to be ordered to possess one?”

2B stayed in place, though she was seemingly eyeing the hand on her shoulder. “How long have you known?”

“Long enough,” she spat. “I trusted you. I told you to continue looking after him.”

“You know nothing,” seethed 2B, raising her hand to prise 21O's from her shoulder. “I'm going. Command... will have to be informed. If he knows anything, it'll be down to you if those orders you so lightly brought up are given.”

Without warning, the hand that she had just removed from her shoulder was at her throat – and her shoulder, and the rest of her, was slammed against the wall directly next to the door.

“If you so much as think of breathing a word to anyone outside of this room,” whispered 21O, her face a hair's breadth from 2B's, “I will personally see to it that _your_ memories are the ones that are thrown away as if they were nothing.”

2B didn't fight back, though she struggled a little against the surprisingly tight grip on her windpipe. The only reason that she _hadn't_ attempted to fight back was because in this position, 21O would be able to crush her windpipe first. Operators were still capable of combat, simply to a much lesser degree. 2B's hands moved against her will to attempt to pull the offending digits away, but 21O held tight.

“And just how... do you propose to carry out... that threat?” 2B managed to choke out.

With her free hand, 21O leaned in, and tore the combat goggles from 2B's eyes. She blinked and squinted, as her visual feed adapted to the bright artificial light of the Bunker.

“Humanity is extinct,” 21O hissed, locking eyes with her. “YoRHa founded the Council of Humanity to cover it up to increase android morale. We 'needed a reason to fight'.”

2B attempted to draw a surprised breath, but the unrelenting fingers at her neck prevented anything other than a light gasp.

“And so now you know what we know, you have no leverage,” 21O said, the words delivered so close to the other android's face that she could feel the breath behind every syllable. “I would _gladly_ sacrifice my own memories in an instant to tell them what you know – to see the look on your face as they take everything you hold so close to you, so selfishly, away from you.”

It was a bluff, of course, backed up by the underlying facts of the matter. Her mind briefly settled on the memories of the taste of 9S's lips and his laughing face, and she felt nauseous for a moment, thinking of forgetting those things. She relinquished her grip on the other girl's neck, praying that it would add to the weight of her lie. If 2B thought she no longer needed to be physically restrained, there was a higher chance that she bought into the bluff.

“Fine,” 2B wheezed, massaging her skin, the imprints of 21O's fingers still bright red against the rest of the pale white. Clearly, her own memories were as precious to her as 21O's were. “I won't speak of it, but... you said what 'we' know,” she breathed, after a pause.

“I simply gave back what was rightfully his,” replied 21O, her own fingers aching from exerting so much pressure on a far sturdier model than she. “Our memories are what make us who we are.”

“I see,” 2B said. “So he knows everything, then?”

“I take it that since that is a surprise to you, he did a better job of hiding it than I did,” 21O said in a hushed, low voice. “Though, I suppose you are no stranger to the concept of pretending to have only just met someone.”

“You say it like I have a choice,” 2B said, bitterly.

“You did have a choice,” came the reply, without hesitation.

“What was I supposed to do? Pass him off to another E-unit?”

“ _Yes_ ,” said 21O, “that is exactly what you were supposed to do, the instant you became fond of him. But you – you were selfish, and you put your own feelings above his. How do you think he felt to be betrayed by the person he thought he could trust, time and time again?”

“And what about you?” 2B asked, taking an angry step towards her, “ _you're_ attached. Shouldn't you be requesting a transfer for him, too?”

21O took a step closer too, to match hers. “I don't _kill_ him,” she said.

2B seemed visibly shaken by those words, choosing to ignore the last show of repartee in favour of posing a question she needed to know the answer to. “So what now?”

“ _What now?_ What do you think?”

“I don't know what you want from me,” she responded, quietly.

21O sighed. She didn't expect to have to spell everything out to her.

“I don't want to be your enemy, 2B,” she said, resignedly, “and neither does 9S.”

“I don't understand,” she repeated.

“If you are honest with those who have been capable of caring for you, even as you feign ignorance and apathy, then perhaps we can all move on. Don't you agree?”

“I...” 2B stalled for words, turning them over in her mind.

“That does however, include 6O. You and I both know that she deserves better than to be kept in the dark.”

2B nodded silently, her eyes facing downward. It was almost enough for 21O to feel guilty for hurting her, but perhaps it had been necessary, if only to force some sense into her.

“He doesn't hate you,” 21O said, placing her hand on the other girl's shoulder once more, but there was no malice in her touch, this time. “He simply needs to hear your reasons, from you.”

“His pod,” 2B whispered. “His pod will know.”

“So far, it does not, and you need only discuss it once,” 21O said, attempting to reassure her, despite herself. “So long as the four of us refrain from openly discussing the subject matter in front of both his _and_ yours, or anyone else, there is no need to worry. As you have noticed, he is quite the accomplished actor.”

“What about the rest of it? If that's true, and that's what he kept finding out, how can you go on so calmly, knowing we have nothing to fight for?”

“That is a matter of opinion,” said 21O, sitting down on the side of her bed. “I would have thought fighting for 6O would be more than enough reason for you to continue on.”

“I didn't – that's not what I meant,” said 2B, still coming to terms with the gravity of the entire situation, and apparently not realising how obvious she had been, with regards to 6O. “I meant that ignoring the most important part of our core programming is... almost unthinkable.”

“It is,” replied 21O. “But given the circumstances, there is precious little choice other than to find something else worth devoting our lives to.”

“What about you?”

“I... would have thought that was obvious,” 21O said, apprehensive of openly revealing her already screwed up feelings to someone she had assaulted mere moments ago.

“I see,” 2B murmured. It wasn't as if she was averse to the idea of moving on, and being free of the burden of her very existence – far from it – but it was all so fast. “What about the others? The rest of YoRHa? Half of them would desert on the spot if they knew.”

21O paused. Truthfully, she hadn't given a lot of thought to the bigger picture yet.

“Perhaps it is a little hypocritical to say, but for the time being, provided 6O has no objections, I would suggest that the four of us put our _own_ interests first.”

“It's not hypocritical,” admitted 2B, though she was still wary. “It's logical. We don't know how they'd react.”

“I am glad that you see it that way,” said 21O, resting her head in her hands for a moment, then looking back up at 2B. “I need to ask you something.”

2B simply nodded.

“Frankly, I am still filled with a sense of disgust when I look at you,” 21O stated, bluntly. “I simply cannot believe that you let this go on as long as it did. Though that does not mean that I do not wish to move past this, together with you, in time.”

“Go on,” murmured 2B.

“It was not my desire to threaten you, or to blackmail you,” 21O said. It wasn't an apology, but it _was_ an acknowledgement. “I do not doubt your intentions, only your reasoning – I could not allow it to happen to him again.”

“I didn't – I didn't _want_ –” 2B choked up once more, this time without the hand at her throat.

“I know that,” whispered 21O. “What I need to ask you is this: can I trust you?”

2B held back a sob.

“After – you would... after everything, you still...?”

“I _want_ to trust you, 2B. I am asking you if I _can_.”

“Can you promise... that I won't have to – it's really over?”

“Again, so long as we take the proper precautions to discuss –”

“Then yes,” said 2B, her eyes shining with tears. “You can trust me.”

 

**

 

21O almost couldn't manage to muster the emotional strength to push the panel on his doorway, but an unseen force guided her finger to the button. A small part of her wondered if he would even answer, but she needn't have worried over something like that.

He was at the door in an instant, wearing only a shirt and some light shorts.

“I was starting to think you weren't gonna – I mean, not that I presumed... sorry, come in,” he said, his words almost as jumbled as her head was. “Are you alright?”

“I spoke with 2B just now,” she stated, plainly, in a way thankful that they had something else to discuss. “She knows.”

“Oh, shit – shit, you're kidding, right? Did she see through it? Shit, I knew I should've just taken that damn chip out of –”

“9S, relax, please,” she said, quickly. “She isn't going to tell anyone, nor is she going to do anything about it.”

“There's no way she would just accept it,” 9S said, shaking his head frantically. “Not after this many times.”

“Her memories are important to her,” 21O said, leaving him looking confused. “You told me you trusted me, so please, trust me now. She was... relieved.”

His posture relaxed, as he traipsed back to his bed, lying back against the headboard, his knees bent. He began to massage his temples with his fingers. “She was?”

“I... can say with certainty that she took no pleasure in her assignment,” said 21O quietly, recalling the image of her eyes filled with tears of what looked like joy. “She will likely try to approach you regarding it at some point, so please make sure to send your Pods elsewhere when she does.”

“Alright,” he said, though he still looked flabbergasted. “I don't know how you did it, but... thank you. For making it right. It's still not gonna be easy, but... yeah.”

“There is nothing to thank me for,” 21O said, her eyes facing the floor. “There is something else we need to discuss, however.”

“I know – look, about before, I just...”

“N-not that,” she stammered, quickly. Almost too quickly, but she couldn't help it.

“Oh,” he said, sounding dejected. His face fell. “What is it?”

“Since you mentioned earlier that you wished for everyone to know the truth, I... well, 2B and I came to some kind of agreement, though it means nothing if you take issue with it.”

“Yeah? What'd you say?”

“We both feel it would be the logical choice to refrain from telling other YoRHa members the things we discovered,” she said, the words taking physical effort to push out.

“Wait, so she didn't know that before?”

“Yes, she was unaware of the situation regarding the humans on the moon,” 21O said.

“That's messed up... they made her kill me, but they never told her why? Shit...”

21O watched his face – it wasn't contorted with rage, as it had been earlier when they had discussed 2B, but rather, it was pity. If there was anger, it was aimed squarely at YoRHa, not her.

“If you have an issue with what we discussed, please do say something now. It would be wise if we could have at least a course of action to stick to.”

She was acting as she would have at her desk – and she hated it. She hated it, every second of it, but it was important, and she couldn't let her emotions get in the way of this right now.

“It's just so unfair,” he said, finally. “They deserve to know...”

“That may be the case, but... 9S,” she said, settling for a compromise in her own mind. “if any one of them should decide they cannot handle it, or suspects we are lying, or any of the myriad ways in which they could react poorly to the news, it is essentially a death sentence for the four of us.”

“The _four_ of us?”

“2B intends to tell 6O everything tonight,” she replied.

“6O? But why would... oh, right, it's like that...”

“This is a personal request – a selfish request, perhaps, but... I don't want to forget you, 9S. I don't want you to forget me again, either.”

He looked up, at her trembling lip, before he sighed gently, his own lips curling into a soft smile for her.

“That won't happen,” he said. “We'll keep it between us.”

“Thank you,” she breathed, as she made to take up a spot on the edge of the bed, next to him.

“21O, look – about this morning, I...”

“Not now,” she whispered. “Please. I need some time to think.”

He looked disappointed for a second, but then he nodded. “Alright.”

She turned, tilting her head back, looking at the ceiling, exhaling heavily. She didn't mind if he could tell she was worried. It wasn't as if it wasn't obvious, anyway.

“You're still gonna stay, though, right?”

His words cut through the tension in the air like a sword through deep water – in that there was some mild resistance, but the goal was achieved regardless.

She turned to face him, a complicated look on her face, before she leaned forward, silently unzipping her boots. 9S's face was shifting rapidly between confusion, incredulity, and intense nervousness as he realised that she did, in fact, intend to stay the night. He had hoped, but he hadn't _expected._ He watched as she began to unzip the outer layer of her uniform, and let it slip to the floor, her gloves following shortly afterwards, landing in a pile at the side of the bed.

She slid into the bedsheets without a word, almost as if she were terrified that if she opened her mouth, it would be the wrong thing to say, no matter what it was. Her left arm remained uncovered by the bedsheets, and as he lay down next to her, his pulse racing, she felt his arm brush against hers. The feeling sent shivers down her spine, and her mouth felt extraordinarily dry all of a sudden – yet it wasn't unpleasant in the least. If anything, his warmth was comforting.

She gasped when his fingers found their way between hers, his thumb stroking over the back of her hand. A short, yet intense internal battle took place within her mind, as she considered whether to pull away or not.

She heard him let out a nervous, shaky breath, and as her own thumb moved to caress the side of his own instinctively, she decided that she wouldn't take away what was likely the only source of comfort he had felt all day.

“I'm here, Nines,” she said, almost terrified of the words that left her lips behind in a breath filled with tenderness. “I'm here.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT? A NEW CHAPTER? BUT IT'S ONLY BEEN A DAY???  
> I didn't want to keep y'all waiting for the resolution of how her feelings played out, and I hope you're happy with what I went with.  
> I had debated putting this in the previous chapter, but it felt better to separate off, I think.
> 
> I'm so in love with these two that I could write a thousand thousand words of fluff for them, but I trimmed it down to a sensible, believable length. For now. No promises for the last chapter.
> 
> Please leave a comment, thank you <3

All through the night, the one constant was his soft, methodical stroking of her hand, though she was sure that she had seen him in rest mode whenever she opened her eyes. Whether he had simply just been relaxing, rather than sleeping, or if he had installed some kind of a low-level subroutine to keep it up, she was grateful for it.

They woke together at points, the barely-there glow of the stars their only light source, flowing in through the small window above his desk. They didn't speak, but they searched each other's eyes, for large blocks of time; it felt as if they would move a little closer, at points, but they never did. The lambent illumination from above them bathed half of his face in an almost ethereal light, showing off the pale, milky-white skin of his soft cheeks. He'd smile, sometimes, having caught sight of something deep within her eyes that only he could see, and she would find herself unable to resist returning it, before coyly averting her eyes, or closing them once more.

As soon as she had climbed into his bed, she had decided that in the morning, she would bring up what was absolutely necessary, no matter the consequences. She wanted to savour this moment for as long as possible, for fear that it was the last time she could be this close to him, in any sense. He might be disgusted, or angry, and she wanted at least one memory to be able to console herself with, afterwards.

“You're thinking hard,” he whispered to her, breaking the silence. “I can see it in your face.”

“Very astute,” she whispered back, without opening her eyes to meet his.

“I didn't do anything wrong, did I?”

“No,” she said, truthfully. He hadn't.

“I really feel lucky right now, y'know,” he went on. She should have known he wouldn't be able to keep his mouth shut for the whole night. “I never really thanked you properly, either.”

“For what?” she asked, in a hushed murmur.

“Everything,” he replied, leaning forwards to kiss the very tip of her small nose. “Thank you.”

The lingering feeling on her skin permeated her entire body, filling her mind with fuzzy white noise, and preventing any real train of thought. No matter how hard she tried to push it down to a lower level of her processors' priorities, the feeling of his breath on her face kept swimming to the forefront of her mind. She rolled her eyes behind her lids, deciding that she had to at least _try_ to find out what she truly desired.

“May I be selfish again, for a moment?”

His breath hitched again, as he instantly began to wonder what she wanted to ask of him. He didn't even get a chance to reply, before she kissed him, this time.

Her hands rose to his cheeks, pulling him closer, further into her. He almost hesitated for a moment, as if he wasn't sure whether he was supposed to be returning the gesture or not, before he gave in to the sensations of her gently, insistently tugging his bottom lip downwards with her teeth – clearly, she wanted him to take the hint.

It was hard to focus on just what exactly it was that she was attempting to take away from the experience, as she felt the tip of his tongue tickling at her lips, almost begging for permission to enter. She could sense something... _raw_ coming from him, as if he had been holding it back the entire night. The way one of his arms started to curl around her back and press into the small of it, pushing her closer, the way the other reached up to brush her hair delicately away from her face – _god_ it was good.

Too good, almost. His tongue explored her mouth, toying with her own. She could tell he was smiling, even as he ran it over the surface of her own, teasing her, daring her to do the same to his, though she was unable to muster the confidence to do so.

As they broke apart, it was her turn to smile at him, though he looked confused when she pushed a gentle palm into his chest when he attempted to kiss her once more.

“You don't wanna feel like it's going too fast, right?” 9S asked, tentatively.

“Perhaps that too, but no,” she said, still smiling. “I have to be honest with you about my other feelings.”

A puzzled frown crossed his features for a moment, but it soon levelled out into a measured look.

“Your other feelings? You mean... there's someone else?”

“No,” she said, “never.”

“What is it, then? I told you, you can tell me anything and everything, I won't be mad. We've been through worse, right?” His face and voice were doing their very best to remain steady, though she could tell he was worried. “Even if... even if you don't really like me like that, I still mean it.”

“That is exactly the problem, 9S... I _do_ like you like 'that'.”

“Then I don't get...” he began before he felt a finger seal his lips shut with its touch alone.

“Even before you showed me how you felt, there was... something I desired,” she said, taking his hand between both of hers. “Something I desired from you.”

He nodded slowly, his breathing erratic.

“A family, 9S. I wanted... a family. To be with you.”

9S opened his mouth briefly to speak, then closed it again, taking a moment to formulate his words as carefully as he could.

“Androids... well, we can't really do that though, not really,” he said, slowly. He'd heard all about familial units before, from his time in Pascal's village. He found it endearing in the end, though he still didn't believe they were truly existing as a family. “I mean, if that's what you need to be happy, I'm sure some day, we'll be able to do _something_ about...”

He realised she was looking at him, with a half-smile; she was looking directly into his eyes, yet at the same time, she looked distant. Far away. It took him a few minutes to realise that he had missed the meaning of her confession entirely.

“Wait, you mean...” he paused, his free hand ceasing its rubbing of hers. “... Oh.”

His mind flashed back to the group of machines in the housing complex, and their crude imitations of human gestures.

_Child. Child. Child. Child._

Was that what they'd be? A little more eloquent, but at the same time...

“But you said... you liked me in that way too, right?”

“That is why it is so hard for me,” she choked. She was still smiling, or trying her best to, but her eyes were misty. “I don't know what I want any more.”

He felt a pang of guilt for thrusting his own feelings upon her, without any consideration for her own, but then he realised there was no way whatsoever that he could have seen _this_ coming.

“Is it... is it how I look?” He had never really paid much attention to his model before, all things considered. He envied 801S's hair sometimes, and he always thought 11S got the better deal when it came to the colour of his eyes, but beyond that, he simply accepted how he was created, as he assumed everyone else did. Now though, for the first time, he almost tasted bitterness on his tongue, overwriting the sweetness of her kiss. He really was boyish, whereas the Operators, by and large, were much more mature.

“9S, it's –”

“Because I – I really don't care how I look, if it's just that throwing you off, I'll put in a request to command...”

“9S,” she repeated softly, silencing him. “It isn't about that. I simply want to care for you, and I... more than that, I want to be the one you turn to, I want to be the one that you share your problems with, I...”

He looked puzzled all over again.

“I think I found your problem,” he said, resuming his affections toward the back of her hand. “You're... looking at this whole thing in a really human way.”

“In what sense?”

“I mean, I get what you're saying and all, but uh... if that's all there is to it, then the way I see it, there's nothing stopping you being that for me, even if we were – y'know, together?”

Her black box almost ceased its functioning there and then. He was right.

“I mean, I'm not gonna start calling you 'mom' or anything any time soon,” he said, with a little laugh, “but... there's nothing stopping you being a little more affectionate, right?”

He was _entirely_ right. She had spent so much time focusing on what _humans_ thought about their familial units, she hadn't even paid a second thought to what the two of them were, in reality. They weren't humans – there was a reason they saluted with their left hand, and not their right, after all.

“Uh... right?” he asked again, hoping for more of a response than a pensive gaze at the wall behind him. He was hoping against hope that he'd gotten through to her.

“It's really alright with you?” she asked, answering his question with a question.

“Emotions are pretty complicated,” he replied, shrugging lightly. “Kinda stupid to assume there's only one flavour of them, isn't it?”

“Even so, 9S...”

“I want to spend as much time as I can with you from now on, okay? Whatever it is you're feeling, we can figure it all out together. I promise, it's all fine.”

She was unsure whether to laugh with relief, or cry into his shoulder; eventually, she settled somewhere in between the two, the tears falling as she giggled nervously. She tried to form words, tried to thank him, to tell him that she _adored_ him, that she was the lucky one, but all that came out was an incoherent sob, every time.

He reached out quickly, and pulled her head into his chest, while she wept into it.

“Hey, it's okay... come on,” he said, whispering small _shh_ sounds into her hair.

She calmed down after a time, rolling over on to him a little more, to rest her head directly against his upper torso. The hum of his black box was soothing; she had watched it fade far too many times. She took solace in the fact that it pulsed only for her, now.

“Can I ask you something?”

He felt her wordlessly nod, before she made a soft sound of affirmation.

“How long have you felt this way?”

“Around two years or so,” she replied, quietly.

His fingers curled into her hair, wrapping a few loose strands around his fingers, gently, and he took a deep breath.

“Did you ever tell me before?”

“Never,” she said.

“Good, I'm kinda glad,” he said, his tone of voice betraying just how glad he was. “Makes me feel special, y'know?”

“You'd be being jealous of yourself, you realise,” 21O mumbled into his damp shirt.

“Hey now, I don't know how different I was,” 9S pouted. “I might've been a totally different person.”

“I can assure you, you were not,” she said, a soft, shaky giggle leaving her lips and resonating through his ribcage. She was glad he was able to make light of the subject, at least. If he had been traumatised by it, she would never have been able to bring up any of the uncountable things he had said or done as past iterations, to make her feel the way she had to him.

“Good to know, I guess,” he teased. “Did I ever uh... well, did I ever tell you?”

“I think you may have come close a few times, now that I have some context behind your actions,” she said. “Though I suspect my manner at the time did a lot to deter you.”

“That's... a comforting thought, actually,” he said, reflecting on the past few days of revelations. “That I felt the same before, I mean.”

“It is, isn't it...” She smiled a little, knowing that she could answer each and every one of the questions he may have had about them.

“Did I really annoy you _every_ time?” 9S asked, while they were on the subject of his past iterations.

“Yes,” she admitted, “and you found new ways to do it every time, too.”

“Does that include now?”

21O remained suspiciously silent. He waited a little while to see if she would respond, then dug his fingers into her sides playfully, making her let out a snort against her will. Unable to stop himself, he repeated it a couple more times; she giggled, and showed him an entirely natural, radiant smile before finally swatting his hands away.

“Sorry,” he said, not at all sorry. “You just have a really pretty smile, y'know...”

“That _is_ a wonderful excuse for what you just did, yes,” replied 21O, still breathing a little quicker, as she allowed his arms into her personal space once more, to wrap tightly around her.

“It's not an excuse,” he said, his tone all of a sudden serious, “it's beautiful.”

“Perhaps now is not the time to tell you that flattery is unnecessary,” she breathed, her cheeks a bright crimson. “Yours was one of the few things I looked forward to seeing whenever you returned.”

He pulled her closer again, almost positive he'd be hurting her if he exerted even the slightest bit more pressure, even with his Scanner's body.

“We're gonna be alright,” he whispered. “I promise.”

“I trust you,” came her reply, “and yes... I know.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IF YOU AREN'T A MOM KISSER YOU'RE AN OPPORTUNITY MISSER
> 
> Pleeeeeease tell me if you think I got this one right or not -- I think it's pretty tasteful all things considered, but maybe you hate it? IDK! ٩(｡•́‿•̀｡)۶  
> I'll MAYBE be writing more of this, but I have a one-shot I wanna get out of the way first I think. Then maybe some other stuff. Who knows.

Finding a convenient meeting time, sans pods, for the four of them had proved more difficult than they had imagined. A month passed, in which knowing glances and soft nods were exchanged between them, but nothing of substance came to pass. The upshot of the situation was that 9S and 2B had managed to straighten things out, for the most part – they were far from the best of friends that they had been at one point, but they were at least making progress.

It took that month to finally arrange their little gathering, and they took up whatever seats they could find inside 6O's quarters. She had offered it willingly, with the reasoning that 2B and 9S had a higher chance of being interrupted by someone with new mission details. When she was pressed on 'why not my room?' by 21O, she replied, “it's boring!” nonchalantly.

Though they had far more important things to discuss, 21O was unsurprised that the first thing 6O noticed was that 9S's hand sat squarely atop her own.

“Hey... that's new, right? Didn't you tell me you wanna be his –” was all she managed to blurt out before she was silenced with an icy glare from 21O. “Uh, I mean, that _is_ new! Good for you!”

“Yes, it is,” replied 21O, before 9S even had a chance to open his mouth. “Now that we are done with both the thrilling and the entirely unexpected, may I ask if you had any objections to what we suggested?”

6O shifted nervously in her seat, prompting 2B to take the lead.

“We did both agree that telling anyone and everyone would be a bad idea,” she said, before shaking her head. “But we're both finding it more than a little difficult to continue on as we are. Do you feel the same?”

“No, yeah, I get it,” 9S chimed in. “We can say we're fighting for what we believe in ourselves all we want, but we're still a part of the problem here, aren't we?”

21O nodded. “I find it distasteful to walk past people I've known for a good number of years and pretend that nothing is wrong, yes. It isn't that I feel like we have another choice, but...”

“Then what're we supposed to do?” asked 6O, turning to the other pair, a concerned look spoiling her usually cheerful expression.

“Operators are nothing but dead weight on the ground, and you know it,” replied 21O, as if reading 6O's mind. Of course deserting was an option, but she and 6O would largely be useless, and they knew it. “Unless you two planned to babysit us until the end of time.”

“Who cares about that stuff? If that's what we have to do, then that's what we'll do,” said 9S, squeezing her hand gently. “You feel the same, right, 2B?”

2B stole a quick glance at 6O, who caught her eye and offered a gentle smile, before she turned back to 9S. “Of course I do, but she's at least half right – feeling the same way as you doesn't stop me worrying.”

“Aw, I'm sure we can look after ourselves for a bit... we're not totally useless, you know,” said 6O. “We're not dead weight, she's just –”

“I'm just what?” asked 21O. “If we are really about to discuss this, we have to be realistic, 6O.” She wasn't trying to put a damper on her attempts to lighten the mood, but the prevailing issue was that this _wasn't_ something that they could discuss lightly.

“Look,” said 9S, as calmly as he could. “From what I can gather, we _really_ don't want this any more, so why don't we stop thinking about the 'if', and start worrying about the 'how'?”

They knew he was right. The logistics of the journey alone were beyond complicated, beyond terrifying to consider.

“I just wanna be with you guys,” mumbled 6O sullenly. “Staying here's gonna make us _all_ miserable.”

“It's not that easy,” whispered 2B tenderly. “The transport terminals don't –”

“– don't work with us, I know...” 6O finished for her. “It'd have to be –”

“– flight units, yes, but that's a huge risk, and I don't like the idea...”

9S and 21O simply watched their back and forth conversation with interest. For all their reservations, they really were in sync.

“Have you used a flight unit before?” 9S asked the two Operators. That wasn't the only question he needed to ask, or the only thing he needed to bring up, but it was a starting point, at least.

“We tested them during early simulations,” replied 21O, reminding 9S just how much longer the two Operators had been around than either he or 2B. “Though it was a long time ago, and the models have changed considerably since then.”

“Alright, well... look, if you're serious about this, then you know they aren't just gonna let us walk straight out of the hangar, right?” 9S said, thinking hard about even the earliest stages of getting the four of them away from YoRHa. It'd all be for nothing if they sent a legion of combat units after them in their own flight units.

2B frowned. Without her visor, it was obvious that she looked undeniably pained. “This isn't going to work,” she said, after a long pause, in which nobody uttered a single word. “It's too risky. It's barely even a plan.”

An even longer silence followed. 6O looked to 21O, hoping she would have something to say, something that would assuage their worries, but nothing came.

“She's right,” muttered 9S, eventually. “Even if we're miserable here, we're not dead – and we will be, if we rush into it.”

6O let out a quiet whine, though she did agree with their judgement.

“We're not saying we're abandoning the whole idea of it,” said 9S, looking over at her with a smile. “Just until we get a better plan, alright?”

21O looked at him through the corner of her eye, feeling pride swelling at his show of restraint. Her hand turned over to squeeze his, surreptitiously.

6O sniffled a little in response. “Yeah, I know. I just... I hate knowing you guys are down there fighting for nothing! It's so unfair...”

“It isn't for nothing,” repeated 2B, for what felt like the eighth time that week alone; it was never a chore, though, as she knew that 6O needed to hear it more than she or the others did. “It's for you. It's for all of us.”

“We've been here this long,” said 21O, her face echoing 9S's smile, “and I am _sure_ we will figure it out sooner rather than later.”

6O looked between them all, misty-eyed, but nodded, then. “R-right! We'll just have to try to make the days more exciting somehow until then, won't we?”

It suddenly became a lot harder to maintain their smiles, as expressions of horror threatened to replace them. 6O's idea of exciting days were anything but tame.

 

**

 

21O and 9S left the other pair alone in 6O's quarters, after promising they would spend as much of their downtime as possible coming up with possible solutions to the problem. It had been decided that they _would_ desert, as soon as it was a truly viable option. It was a grim thought, but there was no dancing around what they now knew.

“Think she'll be alright?” asked 9S, as they walked slowly back to 21O's room. “She was pretty messed up...”

“Yes,” replied 21O, thoughtfully. “I have known her long enough to know that she will pout for a few days, perhaps even a week, then get back into her routine. That, and she has someone to occupy her downtime, now. She'll be fine.”

“Did you two... always work so closely together? Feels like you've been friends a lot longer than the time you've had us as your partners.”

“No, we only began talking as a result of our new directives,” said 21O. “Believe it or not, 6O was rather timid, at first. It took her quite a while to begin socialising in any meaningful way.”

“Longer than you?” teased 9S, earning him a playful shove.

 

9S didn't agree with the judgement that 21O's room was 'boring'. The walls were adorned with whatever photos, old newspaper clippings, and various other preserved paper artefacts from the old world that he had salvaged for her; her bed was mostly as it had been from the very start, save for the extra pillows 9S had taken to building up at the top of the bed. At her desk were a number of somewhat dusty books – more survivors from the apartment complex – and some clipped-out pages from the more damaged of the lot.

Recently, she had been asking after a certain flavour of literature – poetry. Though it wasn't particularly interesting to him, the look in her eyes as she read through anything and everything he could bring back for her was more priceless than any selfish interest he may have held.

As the two of them stripped off the outer layers of their uniform together and climbed into her bed, he found himself a little surprised at just how quickly the two of them had settled into some kind of a daily routine, despite the fact that their lives had technically been turned upside down in the last weeks. Truly, he wasn't sure what he should expect from their new 'relationship' – a word he knew the technical definition of, but soon realised he had no real clue of the meaning behind it.

He had scoured some of her own records (with her permission, of course) and what he saw left him sorely disappointed. It wasn't as if he could take her on a – what was it, a date? She was confined to the Bunker, and short of a trip to the baths on the far side of it, there really wasn't anywhere to take her.

Visiting the baths might have been a bad idea anyway, he thought. He hadn't pushed, or even suggested more intimacy, though more than anything, he did desire to be closer to her – or no, he _craved_ it – especially after taking matters into his own hands and doing his own 'research' on the subject.

They would hold each other at night through their light off-duty shirts, they would kiss, and they would be affectionate in other small ways, but 9S had no clue if that was as far as she wanted to take things. There was absolutely no way she couldn't feel his excitement as she pressed against him at night, though she never commented. Was it simply that she had no interest in such things? It would make sense to him if that were the case, given her personality and hobbies, and he'd still be more than content going on as they were, but it was the not knowing that was eating him up.

He had, obviously, considered whether she was still conflicted over... well, _that_. For the most part, he tried to avoid thinking about it, since it made his head hurt to deliberate over whether she had been, or was still suppressing any of her desires. He had told her she was being too human over it, but in reality, how far could it really go? The only real awkwardness could stem from him being a hypocrite, and looking at the whole thing in a human way himself, couldn't it?

He sighed softly into her back, and the arm he had wrapped around her stomach squeezed a little tighter. Her body was so impossibly _soft_ – he wouldn't have even assumed it could be possible for there to be such a difference between the two of their models. His fingers toyed with the hem of her shirt, while he himself toyed with the idea of testing the waters. If she didn't like it, she'd reprimand him right away; nothing would change, and that was fine by him.

His hand slid up, underneath the thin material, gently and tentatively. He steadied his own breath, as he felt what could only be described as a divine, velvet-smooth sensation beneath his fingertips. God, and she was all his? If this was as far as he was permitted to go until the end of his days, he knew he could die happy.

There wouldn't be any harm in trying, though, he thought. Hoped, rather.

He inched upwards through her shirt, knowing that she would be fully aware of his intentions by now, but he resisted the urge to speak, for fear of ruining the moment. Her breathing hitched for a moment as he cleared her stomach, and began to count her ribs gently with the ascent of his hand, her shirt bunching up more and more with every passing second.

21O's hand moved to hold his wrist softly, just as his thumb brushed against the underside of her breast, and he smiled to himself. _It's okay,_ he thought. _It's just not her thing._

“9S...” she whispered, rolling over on to her back. She didn't remove his hand from its current location, and she seemed content with his fingers lightly stroking the area that they had come to rest.

“It's alright,” replied 9S, quickly, eager to put his mistake behind him. “It's no problem. Don't worry about it, okay?”

“That... isn't...” 21O began, before she tenderly, but firmly maneuvered his hand on top of her breast. “I don't mind,” she murmured.

9S was equal parts elated, confused, and terrified. Of all the possible outcomes, he hadn't accounted for this one. “Are you sure?” he half-squeaked. “I don't want you to feel... I dunno, pressured?”

“ _You?_ Pressuring _me?_ It's... _I_ am the one with such...” she trailed off, though he knew where she was going with it.

“21O... what's so bad that you can't tell me?”

Her words caught in her throat as she rushed to reply; even now, hearing him say her designation without an 'Operator' before it made her a little giddy.

“The other day, you told me something that had... more of an effect on me than I expected it would. Come to think of it, it was some time ago now,” she said, slowly.

“An effect on you? Good or bad?”

21O sighed. “I wish that I could give you a definite answer on that. Good, in that... I am a little clearer on what exactly it is I am hoping for. Bad, in that I highly doubt it can ever come to fruition.”

“What was it I said?” 9S asked, trying his best not to think about where exactly his palm was pressed right now. Or that her nipple was directly positioned between his index and middle finger.

“Something about you not wanting to call me something any time soon,” she muttered. “Though I don't expect you to... never mind.”

 _Oh,_ he thought. _That._

“It... really bothers you that much?”

“I'm afraid so,” 21O whispered in reply, her hand rising through the gap between them to stroke at his cheek. “I'm... sorry, 9S.”

“Please, don't be sorry,” 9S said, his pulse rate rising. Whatever made the woman beside him happy, he'd do it. If she needed it, he'd do it. “I... it's not like I mind, it's just...”

“You don't?”

“Mind? No, not if it's something for you,” he replied, softly. “But uh, does it matter how I...”

“Mm?”

“Do you – well, did you ever think about how you wanted me to say it, or...?”

She turned her head away from him in embarrassment, almost instantly, as if she couldn't believe it was really happening.

“You don't have to... I would understand if it's too...”

“Will you just tell me?” he asked, cutting across her. His question was accompanied by a drawn-out, light pinch of the nipple she had indirectly made him the guardian of.

“D-don't... not while you're asking something so...” she stammered, decidedly out of character. He had to admit, seeing her turn bright crimson from both the physical and the verbal teasing was a sight to behold.

“So...?”

“I can't say it,” she said, shaking her head from side to side, some stray hair coming loose from its tie.

“Aw, but then I'll never be able to do it just the way you want it...” he said, almost tauntingly, inching his way closer to her face.

“9S, don't...” she said, although nervous giggles were creeping their way in between her words.

“Mother?” he whispered in her ear, making her bite her lip. “That's kinda impersonal, don't you think?”

She turned, and buried her face in his shoulder, dissolving into little embarrassed laughs that drove him crazy, though all she accomplished was giving him easier access to her ear.

“What about that time we dug up those old world movies, after we saw those weird machines in the desert? Y'know, the ones that were all dressed up with the capes and hats? What'd they say in those? 'Ma'?”

21O snorted, then hit him in the chest with a loosely balled up fist. She knew that he was just messing with her at this point; tantalising her with what he might never say.

“Alright, alright, jeez, sorry _mom_...”

She gasped involuntarily, seemingly frozen in time for a moment. Then, without any regard for where _his_ hands may have been, she forced her arms underneath him, and drew him into the tightest embrace he had ever felt in his entire life. He felt hot tears sinking into the fabric of his shirt, but he knew just from the way she sobbed that they weren't tears of sadness, but of pure joy.

“Would you... please say it again?” she mumbled into the no man's land between his armpit and his shoulder, after she had settled.

“Uh, I mean... it was kinda a spur of the moment thing – won't it be kind of weird if I just...”

She lightly hit him again, without lifting her head. It was a decidedly playful side of her that he was glad to be allowed to see. “ _Now,_ of all times, is when you wish to keep that mouth of yours shut?”

“I mean... maybe a reward would be nice, y'know...”

“A reward?” she asked, lifting her head to give him a bewildered look. Her eyes were still glistening, but she couldn't hide the smile that fought its way back onto her face no matter how hard she tried to keep it under control.

“You've given me them for way less,” he whispered, with an impish grin on his face.

21O rolled her eyes, before settling for kissing him softly, working her way from his jaw up to his plush lips.

“Are you quite contented now?” she asked, a little breathless.

“I am,” he replied, smugly, and then he leaned in to her ear again, to whisper the word she longed to hear an eternity of.

A shuddering exhale left her lips, and this time, she was only too eager to compensate him. She left him with a gentle kiss again, before pushing herself upright. He looked a little bemused for a second, before she crossed her arms in front of herself and lifted her shirt free from her body, leaving her wearing only a small, black pair of underwear. 9S turned a shade of scarlet to rival her own, and she seemingly enjoyed the look on his face as he took in the sight.

9S echoed her gesture, removing his own shirt as she settled back down on top of him. He greedily lapped up the image of her pressed against his chest tightly, and the sensation and warmth of her breasts on his skin. He pulled her tighter, lightly whispering sweet nothings in her ear, of course weaving in _that word_ whenever it felt appropriate. He couldn't tell if it was that itself that was turning her on, or if she simply sought to take care of his needs as a way of showing her appreciation, but he soon found himself disregarding all logical thought as she began to rub herself along his length.

“Are you sure about this?” 9S asked, voice quivering.

“Certain,” breathed 21O, equally enjoying the view of his flushed face, open mouth, and tousled hair. “It's what you want too, isn't it?”

“You have no idea,” he whispered, as she nibbled his earlobe, making him squirm beneath her.

“I'm going to make sure you _never_ forget me, Nines,” she moaned softly into his ear. If she had a favourite word, so did he. She took one last look at his face, with an expression that told her everything she needed to know, before she lowered her lips to his neck, eliciting more wonderful sounds from the boy's mouth.

“You're... _shit_ , you're amazing...” he managed to utter huskily.

“Shh,” she whispered, “let me take care of you, now...”

With a look of pure bliss on his face as she continued to lavish attention on his sensitive skin, he relaxed backwards, his head sinking down into the many pillows.

 _Familial units sure are great,_ he thought to himself.

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that.  
> It took me a while to figure out how I wanted this to end, and eventually, I went with a far more realistic option.  
> All in all I'm happy with how this turned out, though I think I'm going to stick to one-shots in the future, or at the least, less chapters -- long stories are getting harder for me to stick with. It's hard to write original things with the canon in mind without repeating things I've used in earlier stories. 
> 
> At any rate, I hope you enjoy the last chapter of this. If there's anything you wish I'd done differently, anything you wanted to see, or something you really liked, then please, let me know in the comments.  
> Thank you for reading as usual, and I'll see you soon with a couple of cute one-shot ideas I have in mind.

“Man, we've been here so many times I feel like I almost know what it was like to live here,” groaned 9S, positive there were pebbles in his boots along with the usual heaps of sand this time.

“You aren't wrong,” replied 2B, silently cursing the sand, the heat, and the biting insects that didn't seem to take the hint that android blood would only offer them a painful death. “Though we did clear out that pit for good now, so perhaps it wasn't a total waste.”

9S smiled a little. Even though only a handful of months had passed, he was glad that the gaping wound that YoRHa had inflicted on their friendship was finally beginning to close once and for all. The chatter made missions – even the ones to this hell on Earth – all the more bearable.

“Well, guess we can head back to the Bunker,” said 9S with a yawn. He pulled at the frayed edges of his coat, before turning around and scowling at where one of the last stubby machines' hand had snagged and torn the back half of his shorts almost clean off. It was a wonder they hadn't died there and then to such an underwhelming opponent, since 2B had scarcely been able to fight – she had been almost doubled over in laughter at his embarrassment, swinging her sword with an incredible lack of finesse and technique as he attempted to disentangle himself from his foe.

“I was wondering if you wanted to look for something to bring back for 21O again while we're here, actually,” said 2B, her voice lilting upwards a little mid-sentence.

9S frowned thoughtfully, still trying to hold the tattered fabric in place, to no avail. “Pretty sure we've picked this place apart by now,” he said. “I'm not opposed, just... there's not much left in any kinda serviceable condition, you know?”

“Mm...”

“What about... I dunno, we could try the amusement park,” he pondered out loud. “We never really took our time to comb through everything there, y'know? You could probably find something pretty to bring back for 6O there, too.”

2B nodded, a small smile on her face. Of course 21O had been right. He'd wanted more than anything for things to go back to how they were – not that he remembered them for himself, but he'd caught more than enough glimpses of her true self to be able to put the pieces together. He talked non-stop on the journey, unsurprisingly, but as had been the case lately, she found herself doing the same.

 

**

 

They made their way back to the entrance of the park after a solid hour or two of walking around, arms laden with gifts from generous machines – some possibly useful to them, some of them no doubt frightfully worthless – and set their haul down onto the earth, sitting themselves down beside it all.

“What even is this?” 9S asked, holding up a long piece of what looked like carved wood. It had rotted away a little, but there was some kind of a protective coating on it that had prevented the worst of it. There were visible grooves and dots on one side.

“Analysis: subject in question is a component of an Old World musical instrument. Records suggest it was called a 'guitar',” answered 2B's pod for him.

“Uh... does 6O like...”

“Nope,” replied 2B, snatching it from him and tossing it aside.

“I think this is... money? Old money, I mean,” he mused, rolling the little, dented coins around in his hand. “Guess I'll put that in the 21O pile, she'd probably like them...”

“I'm keeping this one,” stated 2B firmly, without giving 9S a chance to even argue his case if he had wanted to. It was some sort of a trinket box, in remarkably good condition, given the fact that it was likely thousands of years old.

“Fair,” he replied. “These machines really do take care of this stuff, don't they?”

“It's nice to see that we aren't the only sentimental beings left,” 2B said, thoughtfully, looking a little distant. “Whatever their reasons might be.”

“Is this... are these photos?” he asked, holding open a damaged-looking book in front of her.

“Seems so,” said 2B, taking it from him. “These are... humans. Look.”

“Huh? Let me see,” he said, planting himself next to her. “Couldn't they be androids?”

“There's a child,” she said, pointing at one of the faded images contained behind a sheet of plastic.

“So that's how they look...”

He studied their faces in the pictures, intently. It was clear that this was an _actual_ familial unit. What appeared to be the mother held the child aloft in one of the photos, eyes closed, lips pressed to his small cheek. Although some of the images were damaged to the point of being indiscernible, a great many of them were still able to tell their own little stories. The father held hands with the child, the child held hands with the mother; someone else had evidently taken this one for them. The child laughed happily in his mother's arms, the mother smiled up at his face.

“6O told me,” whispered 2B. “Perhaps it wasn't her place, but you know how she is.”

“Oh... she did?”

“It must have been hard for her,” she said softly, thumbing back through the album. “To open up to you about this, I mean.”

“Yeah, I guess it was, but... I dunno, we're mostly okay now. It's a little different to what I expected, but if you get to be with someone who cares about you...”

“Right,” said 2B, nodding. She knew that feeling only too well for herself, now.

“Come to think of it though, I never thought you'd have the energy to end up with 6O,” he teased.

2B smirked. “She's a lot more mellow than you'd think, from what you see of her. I'm clueless as to why, but she seems to relax around me.”

“Makes sense,” remarked 9S. “21O says she never shut up about you for years, so it's no surprise she's calmed down now she has you all to herself.”

“I... that's news to me,” said 2B, cheeks turning red.

“It is? Man, you really are dense,” he laughed. “So uh, which one of us is gonna request the flight units to bring this stuff back to the Bunker?”

Over the course of these last few months, they had slowly, but surely, started to put some kind of a plan into action regarding their desertion. Admittedly, said plan had taken a back seat to taking care of all of their personal issues first and foremost, but now, it was priority number one. Since they had decided against using flight units, they would need to use the transporters back on Earth.

Of course, the only way to begin loading a transporter with spare Operator parts was to manually have them taken down to Earth, which meant finding a great many excuses to refill one of those transporters with android components. It wasn't difficult to lure a group of machines into the sequestered area behind the oil field in the desert – for reasons beyond their comprehension, attacking the transporters seemed to be higher priority for them than attacking androids. With their Operators covering for them, finding an excuse to go there routinely wasn't too difficult – which had left only one major issue.

Operators were rarely damaged. Their parts were often only replaced as a matter of course, due to age or poor maintenance. It had been easy for 6O and 21O to obtain a small number of replacements for various extremities, the larger of which were smuggled into the regular shipments of standard Scanner and Battler parts to be sent to the Resistance camp, with the smaller ones taken down by flight unit in their own supplies, but it grew increasingly difficult for them to fake reasons as to why they, and only they, required such frequent maintenance.

In fact, that in itself was almost reason enough to abandon the plan in its entirety, until 9S had come up with a better idea. The two Operators would have to make peace with having _slightly_ different components in some places, but he'd found a way to tinker with how the transporter viewed them. Instead of simply being the 'O' class to its systems, he had managed to make it read them coming through as an 'O/B' hybrid – in that case, it would use whatever Operator parts it had available first, then reconstruct them with whatever combat unit parts it could to fill in the gaps. It wouldn't be anything major, or even particularly visible, but they still felt that they had to run it by them.

As far as their current situation was concerned, it was getting rather hard to requisition flight units for the admittedly mundane tasks they were undertaking, such as bringing presents back to their Operators, especially after they had used a small fortune in fuel ferrying the smaller components to Earth themselves. They often had small contests to see which of them would have to connect to the Commander and sheepishly request that they could bring seemingly useless junk back with them.

“Well, you did it last time,” said 9S, as gallantly as he could muster. “Guess I'll take the hit.”

“How kind,” replied 2B. “I'll make sure to tell 21O to fluff your pillows twice as much, next time I see her.”

“W-wait, you even know about the pillows?”

“You'd be surprised what I know about,” 2B said, mockingly.

9S grumbled as he began to open a line to the Bunker.

 

**

 

“This is... quite possibly the best thing you have ever brought me,” whispered 21O, gingerly turning the pages of the album on her desk, treating it as if it could crumble to pieces at any given second. “Thank you for going to the trouble of recovering it.”

“Thank the machine who kept it safe all those years,” he said, a weak smile on his face.

“The machine isn't the one standing in front of me,” 21O replied, leaning down to kiss him on top of the head. “Did you have a chance to look through the pictures for yourself?”

“I had a quick look through when we were sorting through the junk we got,” he said, with a light shrug. “It's cute, right?”

“That's rather an understatement,” breathed 21O, still in awe.

“Well, I'm glad you like it,” he said, before clearing his throat. “It doesn't, uh – well, the stuff you're seeing there doesn't bother you, does it?”

21O smiled. “You mean, 'do you intend to stop sharing a bed with me now you've seen that', don't you?”

“I – no, that's not what I – alright, yeah, a little bit,” he admitted.

“Wasn't it you who said that we aren't humans? That emotions are complex? I have no desire to ruin what we have,” she said, closing the book and wrapping her arms around him protectively. “Being with you is more important to me than something I could never truly have.”

He stayed silent, unsure what to say to that.

“You allowing me to show you those desires is... more than enough, 9S.”

“I'm glad,” he whispered. “Do you have to go back, now?”

While being in her room alone was more comforting than being in his own room alone, being alone was ultimately still being alone. 2B would want to spend time with 6O – which was more than fair enough, given how much time they seemed to spend away from the Bunker these days, but without 21O, his socialisation options were somewhat limited, unless he wanted to waste time talking about the latest data collection techniques with 11S.

“I have some reports to file, but I suppose they can wait until tomorrow,” she said, a hand grazing the back of his neck and slipping into his hair. “Was there any particular reason? Not that you need one, but...”

“Just don't like being without you these days,” he muttered. “2B feels the same – uh, about 6O, I mean. We kinda end up just spending a lot our downtime whining that we aren't back here, honestly...”

“I understand,” she whispered, pulling her gloves off behind his back and allowing them to fall haphazardly to the floor. Her hand quickly returned to its position in his hair; her nails on his scalp had fast become his favourite way to be comforted. “I'll stay with you, don't worry.”

They disrobed unceremoniously, ending up in a tangled mess in her bed. He clung to her tightly, as if he were afraid she'd disappear if he didn't.

“Can't believe you told 6O about the pillow thing, though,” 9S mumbled.

“She told you?”

“Worse,” he said, sullenly. “2B told me.”

“I suppose I shall have to be more discerning with what I share with her,” she said, ghosting her fingertips along his shoulder blades. “That must have been embarrassing for you...”

“If it makes you so happy to mess with me, I guess I can live with it,” he said, truly unconcerned, so long as he could claim her warmth as his own. He pulled himself a little tighter to her body, his head resting on her chest and his legs entwined with hers.

“I... was also a little concerned, for a moment,” she whispered.

“You were? Why? Hold on, what about?”

“That you would be the one bothered by how a real familial unit looked,” came the breathy reply.

“Don't care,” he murmured into her chest. “Happy with you.”

“9S,” 21O said, curling her fingers tightly into his hair, “what exactly is wrong?”

“I told you, I just missed y–”

_“Nines.”_

A shaky exhale spilled forth from his lips, and his body echoed the shaking.

“I'm... scared,” he said, finally. “So, so scared.”

“Tell me,” she said, the most gentle tones caressing his aural sensors.

“We've barely even talked about what we're gonna do, or how we're gonna actually do it,” he said, slowly. “None of us have, not really...”

21O kept quiet, steadily and rhythmically combing her fingertips across his head.

“I just – things are good, now, aren't they? We're safe here, there's nothing that can hurt us, not permanently, anyway... I almost forgot all about everything when I was down there with 2B earlier, you know? I got so lost in conversation, it didn't even register that it's not gonna last... and I – I don't...”

“Please,” implored 21O. “I need to know what you're thinking, or – or I can't help.”

“I don't want to lose you. I – I _can't_ lose you. It's all so... it's just – it's too much, okay? I don't care if YoRHa's all lies, _this_ isn't lies, and _you_ aren't lies, and that's... all I need...”

“How long have you been thinking this way?”

“Since I rewired the transporter,” he said, tears rolling down his cheeks, and into her shirt. “It made it feel so real, so so real...”

“I know,” she said, feeling a lump in her own throat. “Are you saying you'd rather stay here?”

“I don't want – I can't think about it right now, I can't, it's too much,” 9S said, the sobs turning into coughs.

21O fought the urge to cry herself, upon hearing his broken voice, but continued to hold him as close to her as she possibly could.

“We don't have to,” she whispered. “We'll stay right here, for as long as you need.”

“I... just want to be with you,” he sniffed, “close to you...”

He buried his face into her neck, his lips pressing to her skin, again and again, savouring the feeling of her pulse beneath him.

“...I …ve you,” he purred into her neck. “I need you...”

“What... did you just say?”

“I said I love you,” he repeated. They both knew it was a forbidden word. It was so inherently human to love. Anger, jealousy, happiness, sadness – officially, they were prohibited, and as such, were acknowledged as something they could feel. Love, however, was something that was viewed with reverence, sometimes even fear.

“Do you truly mean that?” she asked, almost scared in case she had somehow misheard.

“I mean it,” he breathed.

 _What now, then?_ 21O thought. Take him away from safety, after this? He had been the one to be so disgusted with it, so at odds with the idea of keeping their secret to themselves, but now he seemed content to swallow it all for a life in relative safety with her.

“It's okay, right?” 9S asked tentatively, noting her silence.

She smiled and dug her nails into his back. “It's something I never thought I'd hear, that's all.”

He dragged himself a little further up the bed, his lips in line with her ear. The next few minutes were filled with nothing but a never-ceasing stream of sweet nothings, only for her. He told her things that made her smile, cry, and sometimes both at once.

“Want you,” he finished, almost begging.

She knew it had nothing to do with any kind of physical need, not this time. She knew that he needed to feel wanted, that he needed to feel safe, but above all, he needed to feel _her_.

Wordlessly, she shifted her weight, and rolled him onto his back without breaking the contact between them; silently, she pulled off her shirt, and then helped him out of his.

The feeling of her bare skin on his was unlike any other, to him. He could feel the thrum of her black box mingling with his own, could feel the gentle rising and falling of her chest, could feel her pulse, feel how _alive_ she was.

Though they had never gone any further than heavy petting, they didn't feel the need to ask questions or ruin this moment with meaningless conjecture, as 2B would have put it at one point.

He slipped inside her without difficulty – she had been ready for him since hearing his soft words tickling her ears – and for a time, they simply held each other, kissed each other, and savoured the sensation of feeling so... complete. She pushed herself upright, finally prising her lips apart from his; he followed her, to the best of abilities, with all of the leverage he had. His arms wrapped loosely around her neck to hold himself steady, and his lips, deprived of her tongue, explored whatever was within reach.

“Whatever you need,” she whispered, “I... I'm all yours...”

He nodded and swallowed, clinging to her. Slowly, she began to roll her hips on top of him, pushing him back down into the sheets gently and using one hand as an anchor on his chest; while 9S had been curious and exploratory, she was the one well-versed on the theory behind the act – though she had, of course, never put it into practice.

Feeling his muscles tense and relax underneath her, his breaths becoming shallow and needy over shaky and unsteady, and the incredible feeling of warmth and fullness inside her, she thought she might lose herself entirely. Her usually calm, logical mind was becoming desperate, disregarding any coherent thought in favour of doing whatever she could to elicit more sounds of contentment from him.

This was what was important, wasn't it? This was all that mattered. She lay against him, pressing herself close as he began to thrust rhythmically, kissing his neck and taking her turn to murmur in his ear, as steadily as she could. Though she fought against it with futility, her voice was fast becoming saturated with the same amount of desire as his.

Cupping his face with both hands, she propped herself up with her elbows and gazed deeply into his eyes. Raw emotion flowed through her as he met them, his cheeks dusted pink and his eyes barely managing to stay open as his visual feed diverted its energy elsewhere.

Operator 21O was neither conceited nor self-applauding, but she knew that in the moment that followed as he moaned deeply into her mouth, writhing against her, Unit 9S belonged to her. With that, came her own realisation that she surely belonged to him, too, as she shuddered through her own climax, vision whiting out as she sank her teeth into his shoulder to stop herself crying out.

She was only vaguely aware of his arms wrapped around her, one in her hair, one around the lower half of her back, as she came down from her plateau. As he opened his mouth to speak, after some time, she cut him off.

“You don't have to ask,” she whispered. “We'll stay.”

The heavy sigh, and the tears that fell then, were that of relief.

 

**

 

“2B? May I speak with you a moment?”

21O had broken into a light run in the corridor to catch up with her. Both she and 9S had been planet-side for two weeks, and she hadn't had the chance to speak to her properly since then.

“So long as it won't take too long, sure,” replied 2B. It wasn't a short tempered response, merely an exhausted one.

“I will make it quick,” said 21O, stepping inside the other girl's quarters. She knew full well how much the last mission had taken out of the pair of them. Inside, 6O was in rest mode on the bed, curled into a tight ball on her side. 2B simply shrugged.

“I do sometimes wonder why they even let her keep her own quarters,” mused 2B. “Anyway, what was it you wanted to talk about?”

“I have to apologise to you,” stated 21O, sincerely. She tugged the veil from her mouth, pulling the headband with it and holding it tightly in her hand.

“What for?” asked 2B, looking mildly bemused as she pulled the visor from her own face.

“I should never have called you a coward, then, nor should I have accused of you being spineless,” 21O began. “Not now that I truly understand what it means to be terrified of losing someone you lo... care for.”

2B stayed silent. She looked a little rigid.

“We – 9S and myself – we... cannot go through with it. Living a lie is... more than distasteful, but at least it is living.”

“I don't think I could have either,” said 2B softly, after a pause. She gazed over at 6O, breathing gently on the bed. “I've seen what it does to people. I don't want that for her.”

21O nodded, a small smile on her face. “It's ironic, isn't it? For all we try, we end up being the most sentimental of all.”

“A little, yes,” 2B said, laughing softly, sitting on the bed next to 6O and gently stroking her arm. “Though truthfully, this one would've done it in a heartbeat if we'd asked it of her.”

“I... cannot say the same for 9S. I do not think him letting me leave was even a possibility.”

“He's not one to risk anything but himself,” replied 2B, thoughtfully. “At least we aren't blind to the truth. The glory is ours, not a false God named humanity.”

6O stirred in her sleep, mumbling something incoherent as she latched herself on to 2B's arm.

“It is also... rather hard to imagine her down there,” remarked 21O with a smirk. “She doesn't even like when there's an insect in the photos you send her.”

“How do you feel you would have fared?” asked 2B, with a look of rare, genuine curiosity on her face.

“About as well as her,” she replied, with a smile tinged with no small amount of sadness. “Perhaps you're aware, but I _have_ had a stint as a B-unit before. It was... well, let us say that it was not something I would lightly entertain again in the future.”

“Not your thing?”

“Does it look like it would be my thing?”

2B laughed again. “Perhaps not.”

“Well, at any rate, I won't keep you up any longer,” said 21O. “I... truly hope that we can go back to how we once were, sooner rather than later.”

“I hope so, too,” replied 2B, “and... thank you.”

21O turned at the door, an eyebrow raised. “What for?”

“You didn't need to apologise,” 2B said. “Thank you.”

As the door closed behind her, 21O smiled to herself at the thought of 6O as 6B, fleeing in terror from a swarm of bugs, sword flailing behind her as she ran.

 

**

 

Inside her own quarters, the scene was remarkably similar. 9S had obviously tried to wait up for her coming back from her chat with 2B, but his systems had disagreed with that decision; he was sprawled on his stomach, arms at either side of his head at odd angles, his mouth hanging agape.

21O found her heart aching at the scene. It was so wonderfully precious, though she did make a note to bring up the potential emotional and physical strain of these longer missions with Command.

Leaning over, she began to gently remove the articles of clothing that he hadn't managed to find the strength to take off himself. Though he wouldn't wake until his body had been through the recommended duration forced rest mode, she still took the utmost care not to disturb the process – it wasn't as if their minds weren't aware of what was going on around them, even in this state.

Soon, he lay in front of her, in only a small pair of black shorts, and she found herself emotional all over again, seeing how frightfully vulnerable he looked. She lifted his body carefully, tucking him into the far side of the bed, and pulled the covers around him tightly.

After she herself relieved herself of her own uniform, she crawled in next to him, and in a manner not dissimilar to 6O's own tight clutching, wrapped herself around 9S's small frame. He shifted a little against the new sensations, until one of his arms inadvertently slipped between her breasts. 21O heard him make a soft, contented noise, and rolled her eyes. Humanity had found its way into more aspects of them than they gave themselves credit for, she thought.

He looked so peaceful, though, so she couldn't stay even faux-annoyed for long. She kissed his forehead gently, then lay her head down on the pillow, her face less than a whisper away from his ear.

Knowing that his senses were still functional, yet merely dulled, she didn't feel the slightest bit awkward when she began to ever-so-gently hum a melody for him. Nor did she feel self-conscious when the hums turned into the soft-spoken lyrics of an Old World lullaby that had taken pride of place in her personal data storage.

She had promised to keep him safe, and here, in her arms, she could think of no better place.

 


End file.
